


Wrap Me in the Banner I Made

by hannasus



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aging, Alzheimer's Disease, Avengers Tower, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Depression, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Female Friendship, Find Bucky, First Dates, First Kiss, First Time, Grief/Mourning, Male-Female Friendship, Matchmaker Natasha Romanov, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Old Peggy Carter, POV Female Character, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Sexual Tension, Spy Stuff, Wakes & Funerals, Women Being Awesome, actual Disney prince Steve Rogers, background Thor/Jane, background Tony/Pepper, background clint/natasha - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 00:36:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 51,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3467849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannasus/pseuds/hannasus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sharon Carter before, during, and after the events of <i>Captain America: The Winter Soldier.</i> Being BFFs with Natasha Romanoff. Losing everything that matters to her. Bouncing back and continuing to be a badass spy. Coming to terms with her feelings for Steve Rogers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> _**Updated Author's Note, 1-5-17:** There's been a huge spike of interest in this fic lately, which thrills me to no end, but I'm curious to know where all my new readers are coming from. If you've followed a link to this fic from another site, I'd be eternally grateful if you'd leave a comment letting me know how you found it! --Sus_
> 
>  
> 
> This story was inspired by the scene at the end of _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_ when Natasha tells Steve to do her a favor and "call that nurse ... she's nice." The fact that Nat would push Steve toward Sharon in that moment hinted at a relationship between Natasha and Sharon that we never got to see on screen, and I wanted to explore that, as well as the potential of a Steve/Sharon relationship. 
> 
> The way it's been set up in the MCU, the Steve/Sharon relationship has a lot of baggage. Between Sharon being Peggy's niece (or grandniece, more likely), and Sharon and Steve's acquaintance starting with her deceiving and spying on him, they've got some issues to overcome—which I took as a personal challenge. 
> 
> But this story is not just about Sharon and Steve's romance. It's about who Sharon Carter is, what Peggy Carter means to her, and the scars left behind after SHIELD falls. It's about Sharon's friendship with Natasha deepening over time, and about her professional life as an intelligence operative. It's also about Steve, and the journey he goes on post- _Winter Soldier_ (meaning Bucky will show up at some point). My hope is that even if you're not on board the Sharon/Steve ship, this story still has something to offer—and just maybe, by the end, I might have changed your mind a little.
> 
> Huge thanks to everyone on Tumblr who's cheered me on while I was writing this, but most especially to my betas pookharvey and austin360, who helped me get my Washington, D.C., facts and Spanish translations straight, respectively. Any mistakes are totally mine and not theirs.
> 
> There's now [a fanmix](https://8tracks.com/hannasus42/wrap-me-in-the-banner-i-made) for this story if you want to listen along as you read. You can view the track list on my Tumblr [here](http://hannasus.tumblr.com/post/120859419135/a-soundtrack-for-wrap-me-in-the-banner-i-made-a).

“τέτλαθι δή, κραδίη: καὶ κύντερον ἄλλο ποτ᾽ ἔτλης.” (Take courage, my heart: you have endured worse than this.)

— Homer, _Odyssey_ 20.18

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

—Haruki Murakami, _Kafka on the Shore_

 

 

It isn’t easy, separating the legend of Captain America from the reality of Steve Rogers.

Captain America is a figure from a history book. The romantic hero of her Aunt Peggy’s WWII stories. A name engraved on SHIELD’s Wall of Valor. An exhibit at the Smithsonian.

Steve Rogers is an assignment. The subject of exhaustive research and surveillance. The focus of weekly reports to Director Fury. The target in a stratagem of deceit and dissimulation.

It’s not an assignment Sharon Carter was thrilled to get. A babysitting job? It’s beneath her.

“Try spending a few weeks as Tony Stark’s assistant and then get back to me,” Natasha Romanoff scoffs. “Trust me, Rogers is a cakewalk.”

Fury has had the two of them tag-teaming Captain Rogers since he was relocated to D.C. in April—Romanoff on the job and Sharon outside of it. Sharon can’t help feeling like she drew the short straw on this assignment. She’d much rather be the one working alongside Rogers than the one tailing him and lying to him and orchestrating meet cutes in the hallway outside his apartment.

“Hey, at least the view’s nice,” Romanoff adds, smirking.

It’s true. Steve Rogers is not just improbably handsome, he is objectively beautiful. She and Natasha have turned it into a running joke between them. The Jawline of Justice. The Abs of Domestic Tranquility. The Ass Cheeks of Liberty to Ourselves and Our Posterity.

It helps to pass the time while they’re reviewing the latest mind-numbingly dull surveillance report on Rogers’ trip to Target for toilet paper and laundry detergent. It’s also a defense mechanism. Dehumanizing the target makes it easier to ignore the fact that they’re violating his privacy and betraying his trust.

The problem is that it’s not actually possible to dehumanize Steve Rogers, no matter how many jokes you make about his ass. He’s just so _nice._ So earnest. So good. He is a man who never fails to say _please_ and _thank you_ and _good morning,_ who always has a friendly smile to offer even when he’s tired or running late. Sharon has literally seen him stop to help an old lady across the street—twice.

There’s an aura of goodness to him that’s almost palpable; he emits it through the pores of his skin like one of those plug-in air fresheners. Just being in the same room with him makes you want to be a better person. He’s a hero out of a storybook come to life. A walking Disney prince. He should be followed around by cartoon birds and a trio of singing mice.

Despite her rigorous prepping for the assignment, Sharon was inadequately prepared for the flesh-and-blood reality of Steve Rogers. The man described in SHIELD’s files is a natural-born leader, confident and strong-willed. The man her Aunt Peggy told her stories about was brave and self-sacrificing and audacious.

But the man Sharon has come to know over the last few months is bashful, kind of awkward, and disarmingly sweet. He’s also persistently, heartbreakingly sad. His eyes have a strained, haunted look that never fully goes away, even when he’s flashing one of his friendly smiles at you.

He’s never sadder than when he’s been to visit Peggy at the nursing home. Even without the security detail reporting on his every move, Sharon can tell that he’s been there by the pain in his expression and the defeated slump of his shoulders.

It makes her job harder, knowing they’re connected by their love for Peggy. Sharon aches to tell Rogers who she really is and what Peggy Carter means to her. To look him in the eye and just tell him the truth for once.

But she won’t. She’s a professional, one of the best. There are people at SHIELD who say she traded on her name to get ahead, but none of those people have ever worked with her. The people who know her respect her for who she is, not who she’s related to, and she isn’t going to throw that away for Steve Rogers or anyone else—no matter how often he flashes his sad puppy eyes at her.

Besides, even if she were willing disobey orders and break her cover, the reality is that because of this assignment she and Steve Rogers will never be friends. She’s lied to him. Violated the sanctity of his home. Even used the people he loved against him—his friendly neighbor Kate isn’t a nurse by accident. Sharon chose her cover because Steve’s mother was a nurse and because Peggy was a nurse, and she knew he would be more inclined to like a nurse.

How could he possibly forgive her after all of that?

* * *

“He’s too isolated,” Sharon tells Romanoff the next time they meet. “I think he’s lonely.”

Rogers rarely interacts with anyone outside of SHIELD, and he declines opportunities to socialize with his coworkers more often than he accepts. He’s been on exactly two dates since Sharon started this detail, neither of which led to an encore performance.

“Maybe we should leave a puppy on his doorstop,” Romanoff suggests, chewing on the plastic stirrer from her coffee.

“No way, I’d probably be the one he asked to dog-sit for him every time he went on a mission.” Sharon reaches for her hazelnut latte. “How was the Indian Ocean, anyway?”

Romanoff’s jaw clenches almost imperceptibly. “Wet.”

Sharon raises an eyebrow. “Something happen out there?”

“Nope.”

Sharon knows she’s lying, and Romanoff undoubtedly knows she knows, but Sharon drops it. If there was something she needed to know, Natasha would tell her. They’ve worked together enough to understand and trust one another, but neither of them are big on unnecessary sharing—which is just fine with Sharon. She’s not looking for a BFF, just someone she can count on to do the job.

“I told Rogers he should ask you out,” Romanoff says, smirking.

Sharon nearly chokes on her drink. “Why would you do that?”

Romanoff shrugs. “He’d be happier if he had someone to keep the Pecs of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness warm for him at night.”

“Kate can’t go out with him,” Sharon says flatly.

“It’s within the purview of your assignment.”

Sharon looks at her, but doesn’t say anything.

Romanoff nods, realization dawning. “You like him.”

“Don’t you?” Sharon asks.

Romanoff doesn’t answer. Not that Sharon expected her to.

* * *

Rogers does ask Kate out, very awkwardly and very endearingly, and Sharon very gently turns him down. Then she goes back into her fake apartment and tries not to think about the disappointment in his face. Her own gnawing sense of regret isn’t so easy to ignore.

But that’s before she hears a sniper’s bullets tear through the walls of Steve’s apartment building. Before Director Fury is declared dead. Before a lethal force order is issued for Captain America.

Sharon stands shoulder-to-shoulder with her fellow agents while Secretary Pierce, wearing the face of a liar, declares that Captain America is an enemy of SHIELD. Her expression doesn’t change as her left hand, concealed in her pocket, types out a warning text to Romanoff. Nick Fury’s last orders to her were to watch Rogers’ back, which is exactly what Sharon intends to keep doing, no matter what Alexander Pierce says. She’s willing to bet her life (and Steve’s) that Natasha Romanoff will feel the same way.

Brock Rumlow and his strike team are put in charge of the hunt for Rogers. As the former head of Rogers’ security detail, Sharon is questioned extensively about Steve’s habits. She gives Rumlow nothing that isn’t already recorded in the activity logs, nothing he couldn’t have found out for himself by reading the file. When the footage comes in of Rogers and Romanoff together in the Apple Store, Sharon pretends to be surprised.

Forty-eight hours later, Captain Rogers’ voice booms out of every speaker in the Triskelion, announcing that SHIELD has been infiltrated at the highest levels by HYDRA.

Sharon’s entire life’s work—and her Aunt Peggy’s—literally comes crashing down around her.

* * *

When she gets Natasha’s 911 text, Sharon is knee deep in charred rubble and twisted metal, searching for survivors in what’s left of SHIELD Headquarters.

She dials the callback number with fumbling fingers, breath hitching in her chest.

“How fast can you get to Fair Oaks Hospital?” Natasha asks without preamble.

“Are you okay?” Sharon asks, long past the point of pretended unconcern. She’s lost too much today to act like it doesn’t affect her.

“I’m fine,” Natasha says, which doesn’t necessarily mean she is fine, but she sounds strong, and there’s something intensely comforting in her brusque, business-as-usual tone. “I need a favor.”

“The area’s cordoned off, they’re not letting any SHIELD personnel out unless it’s on a stretcher or in the back of a detention transport vehicle.” Sharon says this, not because she’s not willing to do whatever Natasha needs, but because she wants her to understand what’s involved.

“How long?” Natasha asks again.

Sharon eyes the troops stationed around the perimeter and does some quick calculations in her head. “Give me half an hour.”

It won’t be the first time she’s committed treason today. Or even the second or the third. She’s fired her service weapon at people she would have considered friends when she came into work this morning—well, maybe not friends, exactly, but people she’s shared coffee with, shared lunch. People she’s gone drinking with after work. Even a guy she went home with after the holiday party a few years ago. Three hours ago she put a bullet right between his eyes.

People she trusted. Liars. Traitors. _Nazis._ It still hasn’t sunk in.

“Third floor, ICU waiting room,” Natasha says and hangs up, leaving Sharon with a cold ball of fear in the pit of her stomach.

* * *

Nick Fury is alone in the waiting room—and very much alive—when Sharon gets there, and it doesn’t even crack the top five most surprising things that have happened that day.

“Agent 13,” he says, giving her a cool once-over, pausing briefly on the bandage wrapped around her forearm.

She returns his gaze evenly. “Director.”

“Not me,” he says with a wry expression. “I’m nobody. Just a guy hanging around a hospital waiting room.”

One of his arms is in a sling but otherwise he shows no signs of his injuries. His death may have been fake but those gunshot wounds were real. Sharon’s hands were inside his chest, she felt his blood spilling out through her fingers, hot and sticky. She wonders how many Hail Marys he has left in him.

“Romanoff called me.” She casts an uneasy glance at the double doors leading into the ICU.

“They’ve got Rogers in there,” Fury says, following her gaze. “I need people I can trust close by in case HYDRA tries to finish the job. Hill’s working on getting us into the hospital’s CCTV, but I could use a pair of eyes on those elevators down the hall in the meantime.”

“Yes, sir.” She hesitates. “Is Rogers …”

Fury shakes his head, and for a moment he looks every bit his age. “If you believe in a higher power, Carter, now would be the time to put a word in.”

* * *

Natasha comes and finds her a couple of hours later. “Here,” she says, thrusting a coffee at her. She’s favoring her left arm, Sharon can’t help but notice. She looks bruised and worn out, but also remarkably relaxed, under the circumstances.

Fury left shortly after Sharon got there and she got the impression he wouldn’t be coming back. By then Hill was set up in the waiting room down the hall with a couple of tech guys monitoring the hospital security feeds and local law enforcement channels. There’s a smattering of SHIELD personnel stationed around the hospital, every one of them hand-picked by Hill or Romanoff, but it’s not enough, not if HYDRA finds out where Rogers is and comes after him in force.

“Barton’s up on the roof, we’re good for the moment,” Natasha says, reading Sharon’s mind.

Sharon wraps her hands around the warm cardboard cup, letting her guard down a little for the first time since she took up her position. The coffee Natasha brought turns out to be a hazelnut latte. She could hug her for it, if they were the kind of people who did that sort of thing.

“How’s Rogers?” she asks. No one’s bothered to tell her anything about him and she’s been afraid to ask.

Natasha leans against the wall next to Sharon, her eyes fixed on the bank of elevators across from them. “In a coma. Cerebral edema; skull fracture and other assorted broken bones; couple of gunshot wounds, including one to the abdomen. They say they don’t know if he’ll come out of it.” She shrugs. “None of these doctors know what to make of him, but I figure if he can survive a plane crash and seventy years under the ice, he can survive this no problem.”

Sharon decides to cling to the hope that she’s right. The alternative is too awful to contemplate. “What happened?” she asks.

“He was up on one of the helicarriers. Took a real beating before the whole thing fell out of the sky. We found him on a muddy embankment three kilometers downriver. Barely had a pulse.”

“Someday that’s not today,” Sharon says without looking at her, “I’m going to want you to explain to me what the hell you two have been doing the last two days.”

“Someday that’s not today, I’ll tell you,” Natasha promises.

A man steps out of the ICU and Natasha waves him down. He cocks his head in acknowledgement, shoves his hands in his pockets, and makes his way toward them with an easy gait.

“Sharon Carter, meet Sam Wilson,” Natasha says, adding: “He’s with us.”

“You’re the jogger from the Mall the other day,” Sharon says, shaking the hand he extends to her.

He raises an eyebrow but his polite smile doesn’t falter. “Okay, that’s creepy.”

“Sharon was in charge of Steve’s protective detail,” Natasha explains.

Sam looks at Sharon with an amused expression. “How exactly do you play bodyguard to a superhero?”

“Not very well, obviously,” Sharon says with a thin smile.

“Any change?” Natasha asks Sam.

He shrugs. “Oh-two sats are up a little. I’m taking it as a good sign.”

One of the elevators slides open and four suits step off. Graying hair, grayer faces. One of them Sharon recognizes from TV. Two of the others are wearing earpieces and have visible gun bulges beneath their jackets. “We’re looking for Maria Hill,” says the fourth one, in the officious tone of a professional lackey.

“Waiting room,” Natasha says with a tilt of her head. “Halfway down on your left.”

The four of them move off in perfect formation, like a wedge of geese.

“Am I crazy,” Sam says, “or was that—?”

“The Attorney General of the United States,” Sharon finishes for him.

“Hill called in the big guns,” Natasha says.

* * *

An hour later Sharon is relieved of her post and replaced by a pair of dead-eyed Secret Service agents. Orders of President Ellis. Captain America is a national treasure, after all.

“Go home,” Hill tells her.

“And do what?” Sharon says.

“Get some rest. Wait. There’ll be questions; a lot of people are going to want to talk to you.”

Sharon nods glumly, envisioning the next few months of her life playing out in a variety of government interrogation rooms.

“Eventually the CIA is going to make you an offer,” Hill says. “You should say yes.”

* * *

Sharon goes home. She falls into bed with her clothes still on, concrete dust still clinging to her hair and the smell of hospital antiseptic in her nose. She’s asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow.

Her phone starts ringing early the next morning. She fumbles for it, blinded by the sunlight leaking in through the curtains.

“He’s awake,” Natasha says.

Sharon’s whole body sags with relief. “Is he—?”

“He’s gonna be fine.”

“Oh thank god,” Sharon says, closing her eyes and sinking back onto the bed.

“I can probably get you in if you want to see him.”

“I don’t think he’d be very happy to see me, do you?”

“Maybe not,” Natasha agrees. Then: “You remember the place you told me about with the french fries?”

It takes Sharon a second to work it out. It wasn’t french fries, it was _frites._ The Belgian place in Bethesda. She’d mentioned it to Natasha once, almost four months ago. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Meet me there tonight. 7:30.”


	2. We Ruin Too Easy

Natasha’s already snagged them a hightop by the bar when Sharon arrives at the Belgian place in Bethesda. There’s a good-sized crowd, but it’s a Wednesday night so the place isn’t so packed that everyone’s right on top of each other. Just a nice steady din to make eavesdropping inconvenient.

“Were you followed?” Natasha asks quietly as Sharon slips onto the stool across from her.

Sharon’s had a tail since she left the hospital the day before, but she hasn’t bothered to shake it. There’s no point in going out of her way to make anyone more suspicious of her; this is just a couple of coworkers having a friendly drink, after all. “Thirty-something Georgetown student at the hostess stand and a businessman on his cell phone at the cafe across the street,” she tells Natasha. “You?”

“Couple on a fake blind date by the door and that guy in the corner near the kitchen pretending to write the great American novel. Fucking amateurs. Must be FBI.”

“What can I get you?” asks a cheerful waitress with a bouncy blond ponytail.

“I’ll have a Stella,” Sharon says.

“Same,” Natasha says, matching the waitress’ bubbly smile. “And some of the _pomme frites_ to share.”

“How’s Rogers doing?” Sharon asks when the waitress moves away.

“Not bad, considering. Turns out the guy _is_ nigh invulnerable. Lucky for him, I guess.”

“And us,” Sharon adds.

“And us,” Natasha agrees.

Their waitress drops off their drinks. “Those _frites_ ’ll be out in just a few.”

Natasha raises her glass with a wry smile. “To being out of a job.”

Sharon grudgingly clinks her glass against Natasha’s. “Cheers.”

“The shit’s about to start rolling downhill,” Natasha says. “It’s going to get ugly.”

Sharon has already guessed as much after spending most of the day on the internet, sifting through the mountain of documents released in the SHIELD leak. It’s unbelievable. All of their secrets out there for the world to see—and all of their shame, too. There’s HYDRA, plain as day, with their tendrils in almost everything. They seem to have been there almost from the start, but it was only after Pierce was named director in the late 1980s—shortly after Peggy retired, as it happens—that the infection really started to spread. It makes Sharon sick just thinking about it. It will kill Peggy if she finds out. Absolutely kill her.

Natasha leans back, idly tracing circles in the condensation on her glass. “There was a U.S. attorney in with Rogers for most of the afternoon today, taking his statement. Tomorrow it’s my turn. Justice is going to start issuing subpoenas and arrest warrants in the next few days. There’s going to be a special prosecutor, congressional hearings.”

None of this comes as a surprise. You don’t take down the world’s largest covert military counter-terrorism and intelligence agency without triggering a massive blowback. Everyone in Washington will be scrambling for scapegoats to shoulder the blame. It’s going to be a political bloodbath.

“Are you going to be okay?” Sharon asks. Natasha’s file—her whole life practically—is out there now, and some of it is genuinely ugly. She’ll probably make a tantalizing target for some eager politician looking to propel himself into the spotlight on the back of this clusterfuck.

Natasha’s face contorts into a rueful smile. “I’ll be fine. I always am.”

The waitress slides a plate of _frites_ onto their table _._ “Can I get you ladies anything else?”

“Two more of these beers,” Natasha says, even though they’ve barely touched the ones they already have. “We’re going to be here awhile,” she adds off of Sharon’s look.

Natasha dives into the _frites_ like a bodybuilder on cheat day. They come with a trio of mayos for dipping and she alternates between them all, following up each bite with an expression of ecstasy. “You were right, these are amazing. You better jump in before they’re all gone.”

“I’m good,” Sharon says, feeling vaguely queasy. “It’s all you.”

By the time the waitress brings their beers Natasha has polished off all the _frites._ She hands the empty plate to the waitress with a warm smile.

As soon as the waitress is out of earshot Natasha starts talking, fast and low. The story of the last several days spills out in one long, expressionless monologue. She tells Sharon about the _Lumerian Star,_ the flash drive, and the trip to Camp Lehigh. She tells her about Sam Wilson and Jasper Sitwell and Project Insight. By the time she gets to the part about the Winter Soldier being Bucky Barnes, Sharon’s glad she has that second beer.

Then Natasha tells her about Hill and Fury’s little ruse; about the decision to expose SHIELD and the plan to bring down the helicarriers; about Pierce taking out most of the World Security Council and Fury taking out Pierce.

Sharon feels full-on nauseous by then, like she’s standing on a boat in choppy seas and it’s all she can do to keep herself upright. It’s one thing to read the files on the internet and another thing entirely to hear Natasha’s first-hand account. It’s so much worse than she imagined. There’s nothing left to salvage in all this. SHIELD is really, truly done.

Natasha pushes her untouched second beer towards Sharon. “Drink that, you’ll feel better.”

“I really won’t,” Sharon says, but she reaches for the beer anyway.

“It was Steve’s call,” Natasha says. “He said it all had to go.”

Sharon nods numbly. “Burn the fields and salt the earth.”

Natasha picks up her beer and finishes it off in one long draw. Sets the glass down and grimaces.

Sharon waits for the other shoe to drop. Because there’s clearly another shoe.

“When we found Steve,” Natasha says slowly, “there was water in his lungs. Like he’d drowned.”

“You said he was beside the river.”

“Yeah, _beside_ the river, not in it. Well above the high-water line. But his clothes were waterlogged.”

“Maybe he was conscious long enough to crawl out on his own?” Sharon suggests, even though it doesn’t sound right.

Natasha looks at her sharply. “Or maybe someone pulled him out of the water.”

“And left him there? Who would do that?”

“I think we both know who.”

_Bucky Barnes._ Sharon doesn’t say the name, but she knows they’re both thinking it. Steve believes HYDRA experimented on Barnes, trying to create their own super-soldier. And he’s still out there somewhere. A predator drone with a faulty targeting system.

“What are you going to do?” Sharon asks.

Natasha shrugs. “Steve’s a big boy.”

“I meant what are _you_ going to do.”

Natasha stares at her empty glass. Her forehead furrows. “I was thinking of taking a vacation. A real one, for once. I hear Bali is nice this time of year.”

Bali is shit this time of year—it’s the rainy season. Sharon doesn’t say anything. Natasha wouldn’t have mentioned it if she had any intention of actually going there.

* * *

The next few weeks go exactly how Sharon pictured them: an endless string of interrogations and debriefings and testimonies given under oath. Somehow she manages to come out of it all relatively unscathed. The name Carter still carries some weight in the hallowed halls of the intelligence community, it seems.

At the end of it the CIA makes her an offer, just like Hill predicted, and she accepts, just like Hill told her to.

* * *

The night before she starts at Langley, Steve Rogers shows up at Sharon’s door—her _real_ door, not the one that belonged to her cover. 

“I was pretty mad at you, you know,” he says, stalking past her and into her apartment without waiting for an invitation.

Sharon closes the door and lowers the Glock 19 she was holding behind it. She always answers her door with a gun these days. Too many former coworkers/HYDRA operatives know where she lives. She should probably move, but she _likes_ this apartment, dammit. She’ll never find another place that fits her sectional sofa this well, and anyway it’s convenient to her new job.

Rogers gazes at her levelly, ignoring the sidearm in her hand. He’s dressed in jeans and a hoodie with the hood pulled up, casting his eyes into shadow.

“And now?” she asks, almost but not quite managing to keep her voice steady.

He looks at her for a long time, frowning slightly, like he’s trying to make up his mind. “I guess I’m still struggling to understand it,” he says finally.

Sharon crosses to the kitchen, jerks open a drawer, and exchanges the Glock for a corkscrew. “How’d you find me?” she asks, reaching for a bottle of Malbec.

“Natasha.” He pushes his hood back and casts his eyes around her apartment like he’s expecting to learn something about her from her taste in lamps and throw cushions. “She said I should trust you.” He glances back at her, gives a head tilt. “Which is funny, because she’s not usually big on trust.”

“Did she tell you who I am?”

“That you’re Peggy’s niece?” He gives a rueful head shake. “That’s taking some getting used to, I gotta tell you.”

“Grandniece, actually.” Sharon jerks on the corkscrew and the cork crumbles to pieces, half of it falling into the bottle—which is just a perfect goddamn metaphor for her entire fucking life right now. “I wanted to tell you myself,” she says, struggling to keep the anger out of her voice. “It wasn’t my choice to keep it from you.”

“I appreciate that.” He frowns. “Or I’m trying to, anyway.”

She pours an extra-generous serving of wine into her glass and fishes out bigger pieces of cork with her fingers. She doesn’t bother offering him any because she knows he doesn’t drink wine, only the occasional beer and only socially—and this is clearly not a social call.

He watches with slightly raised eyebrows as she downs an unladylike quantity of wine in one swig. “How is Peggy?” he asks after a moment. “I haven’t been to see her since … everything.”

Sharon sets the wineglass down. Her fingers trace around the edge of the base. “She’s safe. I had her moved to a secure location.”

“Does she know what happened?”

Sharon can’t help the laugh that escapes, sharp and brittle. “That everything she worked her whole life to create was corrupted? What exactly would be the point of trying to explain something like that to her now?”

He doesn’t say anything, just looks at her, like he’s still trying to get a read on her. She has to remind herself that he doesn’t know her at all. He barely even knew Kate, and Kate was never her.

Sharon’s spent the last six months studying, following, and reviewing surveillance footage of Steve Rogers. She’s memorized the cadence of his footsteps, can spot him in a crowd from a hundred meters away. She knows which movies he’s seen and which ones made him laugh, which songs he listens to the most and which ones make him cry. But now that he’s standing here in her apartment she’s not even sure if he knows her real name.

“I’m sorry,” she says, just to break the silence. “I’m usually nicer than this. It’s been a rotten month.”

The corner of his mouth twitches slightly. “Lot of that going around lately.”

Now that she’s really looking at him, he seems different. A little manic, a little ragged around the edges. A little less _nice._

She never saw him when he was in the hospital, so she hasn’t laid eyes on him since they passed in the hall outside Pierce’s office a month ago. His injuries all seem to have healed, at least on the surface, but he’s clearly carrying some new scars that don’t show up on his skin. They all are, she supposes.

The television is tuned to C-SPAN—it was Natasha’s first day of testimony on the Hill and Sharon was watching the replay when Steve showed up. He reaches for the remote and cranks the volume up. Natasha’s voice fills the apartment, talking about Project Insight and Armin Zola’s algorithm, but Steve doesn’t even glance at the screen.

“I’m going away for a while,” he says in a low voice, just barely loud enough for Sharon to make out over the blare of the television.

She’s 97 percent sure her apartment isn’t bugged, because she’s been sweeping it every day, but it’s telling that he’s become this cautious. “You’re going after him, aren’t you?” she says, her voice pitched to match his.

“Who?” he asks, his expression studiously blank. He didn’t used to be such a good a liar. Natasha must be rubbing off on him. Maybe a little too much, Sharon thinks sadly.

“The Winter Soldier,” she says. And then she twists the knife, to gauge his reaction, but also because she’s not a very nice person. “Bucky Barnes.”

He can’t help wincing slightly at the name. He hasn’t gotten that good at deception yet.

“Be careful,” she tells him. It’s a pointless thing to say, but she says it anyway because she has to say something.

He looks down at the floor, then back up again. “Tell Peggy …” He trails off. Shrugs. “I don’t know. Tell her whatever you think is best.”

“If you want to see her—”

He shakes his head. “It’s probably better if I don’t.”

She doesn’t think that’s true, but she doesn’t try to argue. “Come see her when you get back. You can tell her whatever you want then.”

He looks at her. Their eyes meet and hold for a second. He nods. And then he walks out, without another word.

* * *

Natasha calls the next day. “Just a heads up—Steve knows who you really are. He might be coming to see you.”

“He already did.”

“Yeah? How’d it go?” She sounds absurdly cheerful about it, like she’s asking about a blind date she set them up on.

“I really don’t know,” Sharon tells her honestly. “Not as bad as it could have, I guess. But not as well, either.”

“Give him time. He’ll come around.”

“You shouldn’t have told him who I was. I wanted him to hear that from me.”

“I did you a favor. Believe me, it went down a lot easier coming from me.”

“Don’t do me any more favors,” Sharon says irritably.

There’s a pause, and then Natasha says: “Maybe it wasn’t just for you.”

 


	3. I Am Not My Rosy Self

The CIA has a lot of questions. Sharon spends her first few weeks at Langley being debriefed.

They want to know everything, but most especially they want to know about Steve Rogers. She gives them enough to keep them happy, but nothing that isn’t already in a SHIELD file for all the world to read.

Steve has gone completely off the grid, along with Sam Wilson. The CIA isn’t happy about it. They hook Sharon up to a polygraph but she’s able to tell them truthfully that she only met Wilson once, that Rogers doesn’t trust her enough to confide in her, that she has no idea where they are.

They never ask her anything about Barnes, which she takes to mean they don’t know about him. She doesn’t volunteer to enlighten them.

Eventually her new bosses decide she’s trustworthy enough to put to work, arranging extractions for former SHIELD agents who’ve been stranded in the field and coordinating the transition of SHIELD ops that are too important to be abandoned. It’s desk work, but it’s important, and it’s a step up from being treated like a criminal suspect.

Sharon keeps her ears peeled for any sign of Rogers, but he’s just gone. A couple of HYDRA facilities go up in flames, one in D.C. near Union Station and then another in Luxembourg, but there’s no way of knowing if Rogers had anything to do with it. He’s not the only one out there with a grudge against HYDRA.

Natasha’s gone, too, by then. She dropped out of sight the same day she finished giving her testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. A week later Sharon gets a blank postcard from Bali. It’s a picture of a temple on the shores of Lake Bedugul. It looks peaceful. The postmark, however, is from Montserrat. She burns it in the kitchen sink and washes the ashes down the garbage disposer.

Nick Fury’s still dead as far as the CIA and everyone else is concerned. Maria Hill has moved into corporate security, working for Stark Industries, but she doesn’t get in touch and Sharon knows better than to contact her.

Sharon hates being in the dark but more than that she hates being left behind. Nearly everyone she’s ever worked with is either dead, disappeared, or an enemy. She hates the CIA, hates the arrogance and the bureaucracy and the incompetence. She hates SHIELD, too, for turning out to be a lie, and misses it at the same time.

She used to have a fire inside her. She loved what she did, she believed in it. She was _driven._ Now she’s a person who does paperwork and sits in meetings where they talk about how to move pawns around a chessboard and none of it means anything anymore.

There’s a scar on her forearm from Rumlow’s blade. Every night before bed she rubs scar gel onto it, but the mark never seems to fade. She’ll probably carry it for the rest of her life, a reminder of everything she’s lost.

She put too much faith in SHIELD. That was her mistake. She sees that now.

She thought it was a calling. A higher purpose. But it was just a sales pitch. An empty promise. She should have known better. There’s no a Wizard in Oz, just a monster hiding behind the curtain.

She’s better off now, without the lie. That’s what tells herself, anyway.

* * *

At end of her second month with the CIA, Sharon buys a brand new burner phone, dials Natasha’s emergency contact number, and leaves a two-word voicemail: “Call me.”

Natasha calls her back within the hour.

“Happy New Year,” Sharon says, even though the new year started three weeks ago. “Enjoying your vacation?”

“It’s all right.” She sounds bored, which doesn’t surprise Sharon. Natasha has never struck her as the sort of person who enjoys downtime. It’s something they’ve got in common.

“How are the Pecs of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?” Sharon asks. She’s wary of saying Steve’s name over an unsecured line. There are a lot of government agencies still interested in Captain America’s whereabouts, although some of focus has shifted off of him since Vice President Rodriguez was implicated in a plot to assassinate President Ellis last month. SHIELD wasn’t the only corrupt institution in Washington, as it turns out.

She can practically hear Natasha’s shrug over the phone. “How should I know?”

“I figure if he’s in touch with anyone right now, it’s you,” Sharon persists.

There’s a pause before Natasha finally says: “Keeping busy, I hear. Safe.”

“What about you? How’ve you been?”

Natasha lets out a quiet huff of amusement. “I’m always fine, remember?”

“Will you let me know if there’s any news?” Sharon asks. “Important news, anyway.”

“Sure,” Natasha says. “I would have anyway, you know.”

* * *

After that Natasha starts calling every week or so, just to check in. Their conversations are brief and they never say much—they have to be careful what they say over the phone—but it’s better than nothing. It’s a relief just to hear Natasha’s voice again.

When three straight weeks go by without a word from her, Sharon tries not to panic. Then she panics a little anyway. But she doesn’t make any attempt to contact her. Nat would get in touch if she could. Sharon has to trust her. It’s all she’s got left to hold onto anymore.

* * *

It’s nearly midnight on a Friday night at the end of a particularly hellish work week when someone knocks on Sharon’s door. She’s hoping for Natasha but when she looks through the peephole it’s Steve Rogers standing on her doorstep. She fumbles with the locks and throws open the door.

He’s almost unrecognizable from the man she used to know. He’s sporting a beard, which is jarring because she’s literally never seen him with even so much as a hint of five o’clock shadow before. His hair is shorn into a buzz cut and it must come in darker at the roots because he’s lost that all-American golden boy look. His clothes are rumpled and dingy, a far cry from the clean-cut style he’s always favored, but the worst part is how lost he seems, like he’s not sure exactly how he got here.

“I’m sorry, it’s late, isn’t it?” he says, taking in her pajamas.

“It’s fine,” Sharon says, beckoning him inside.

He stands there for a moment like he’s trying to decide whether to take her up on the invitation or flee, before he finally makes up his mind and steps inside.

She doesn’t ask him if he’s okay because it’s clear that he’s not. A dozen scenarios play through her mind, all of them terrible, but she doesn’t question him, doesn’t push for information. She doesn’t have the right; she’s done too much prying into his life already. If he wants to tell her something he’ll decide to tell her on his own. Or he won’t.

“Are you hungry?” she asks instead. If it was anyone else she’d hand him a drink, but a drink isn’t going to do Steve Rogers any good. Food, on the other hand—the same metabolism that makes him immune to alcohol means he’s pretty much always calorie-starved. “I’ve got leftover pizza in the fridge.”

He nods slowly. “Yeah, that’d be …” And then he trails off, like he can’t even manage to come up with the last word of the sentence.

“Sit down.” She sweeps her laptop and briefcase to the side of the breakfast bar to clear a space for him. “I hope pepperoni’s okay,” she says, retrieving the pizza box from the fridge. She ordered an extra-large for dinner, figuring she’d live off of it for the rest of the weekend while she caught up on paperwork. “You want me to heat it up?”

When she turns around he’s sitting on one of her barstools with his shoulders slumped and his hands hanging limply in front of him. His eyes are glassy and unfocused. He shakes his head slightly. “Cold’s fine.”

She sets the open box in front of him. Then she gets him a glass and the carton of milk from the fridge. He finishes off the pizza in a matter of minutes and washes it down with three glasses of milk before coming up for air. She can’t help wondering how long it’s been since the last time he ate. Or slept, for that matter.

“Thank you,” he says when he’s done, rubbing his hands nervously on his jeans. She forgot to give him a napkin, she realizes belatedly. Miss Manners, she is not.

“It’s no trouble,” she tells him. “Really.”

“I’m sorry to just … turn up.” He shakes his head. “I dropped Sam off at his place when we got into town—I figured he’d had enough of me after all this time—and I started to drive back to my apartment and I got halfway there before I remembered …” He grimaces and shakes his head again. “I don’t have an apartment here anymore.”

SHIELD seized his apartment after Fury’s alleged assassination. Confiscated the contents as evidence and put everything into storage—thankfully at an offsite facility and not in the Triskelion itself. God only knows what happened to it after that, though. Impounded by the FBI maybe, or sold off at auction.

“Can you believe, that?” he says ruefully. “I just … forgot. I know I’ve been gone awhile and a lot has happened, but still. How could I forget something like that? And then I thought: this must be what it’s like for Peggy every single day.”

Sharon doesn’t say anything. She’s afraid if she does anything, even moves, he’ll shut down. That she’ll lose him again as soon as he remembers who he’s talking to.

“And suddenly it really hit me,” he continues, not looking at her, his gaze fixed on some random point across the room, “how long it’s been since I’ve seen her. And I just really wanted to talk to her again. There’s so much I need to tell her, she’s the only one who can understand … but then I remembered you’d moved her to a different facility, so I don’t even know where she is anymore or if –” He clamps his lips together and gives a slight shake of his head. “Anyway, I guess that’s how I ended up here.” His eyes finally find hers. “Is she …?”

“She’s fine,” Sharon assures him. “She’s perfectly fine.”

This is not strictly true. The Alzheimer’s has advanced since the last time Steve saw her and Peggy’s lucid periods are growing shorter. She also had a scary bout of pneumonia two months ago, which she came through, thank god, but her lungs aren’t as strong as they were. Sharon doesn’t tell Steve any of this though, because all he needs to hear right now is that Peggy is still alive.

“You can see her tomorrow,” Sharon says. “First thing in the morning, I’ll take you to her.” Mornings are always the best time to visit. Mornings are when she’s most likely to recognize you, to be herself.

His entire body sags with relief. “I’d like that, thank you.”

“You should stay here tonight,” Sharon blurts out before she has a chance to think better of it.

He looks mortified. “I don’t want impose,” he says, lurching to his feet. “I’ll go to a hotel. Or I’ll go back to Sam’s—no, it’s too late. I’ll go to a hotel.”

“It’s not imposing, it’s practical,” she insists, because now that she’s actually made the offer out loud she might as well go all in. “Look, it’s late, and you’re obviously exhausted. I’ve got a perfectly good guest room so there’s no point in driving around looking for a hotel at this hour just so you can come right back here first thing in the morning.”

To her surprise, he actually looks like he might be considering it.

“I promise to keep my hands to myself, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she adds dryly.

He almost kind of smiles at that. “If you’re sure …”

“I’m sure,” she says.

Which is how Steve Rogers ends up spending the night on the futon in Sharon’s spare room.


	4. Wait ’Til The Past Leaks Out

Sharon barely sleeps a wink all night. Funny how she never noticed how much that damn futon frame squeaks until Steve Rogers is the one lying on it. Or how much the sound carries through the walls and into her bedroom, even with both doors closed between them. Every time he rolls over or shifts in his sleep it pulls at her consciousness, dragging her awake, and she ends up lying there listening for … what? She has no idea, but she can’t make herself stop listening for it.

* * *

He’s up before her in the morning. But then he’s a morning person, she knows this about him. Sharon? Is not so much.

By the time she stumbles blearily into the kitchen he’s already showered and shaved and dressed, and he looks a lot more like the old Steve Rogers than when he showed up last night. He’s standing at the stove and—is he actually cooking? Because she’s almost positive she doesn’t have any food in her apartment.

“You shaved your beard,” she says.

He acknowledges her with a glance, running a hand over his chin self-consciously. “I didn’t want Peggy to see me like that.”

He’s traded his crummy hoodie and faded jeans for a clean button-down and a pair of khaki trousers, and he must have found the iron in the spare room because they’re both freshly pressed. It breaks her heart a little that he’s made such an effort to spruce himself up for Peggy.

“There’s coffee,” he says, turning back to the stove.

“Thank god,” she says, and makes a beeline for the coffee maker. “Are those eggs?” she asks, peering around him at the stove.

He nods. “They’ll be ready in a minute. I was going to make bacon to go with them, but you didn’t have any bacon.”

“I didn’t even know I had eggs,” she admits.

“They were hidden behind all the take-out containers,” he says with a wry glance. “They’re a little past their date, but I did the float test and they’re fine.”

She sits down at the breakfast bar, clutching her coffee mug like it’s a security blanket. “Sorry, I’m not much of a homemaker.”

He shrugs. “Everyone’s so obsessed with expiration dates nowadays. It amazes me how much perfectly good food gets thrown out because of an arbitrary date stamped on the package. All that unnecessary waste when there are still people going hungry all over the place.”

He seems oddly at home in her kitchen. Almost relaxed even, like she’s seeing him in his element for the first time. Months of surveillance and she’s never gotten a glimpse of this Steve Rogers before.

“So does the fact that you’re making me breakfast mean you don’t hate me anymore?” she asks, figuring they may as well lay their cards out on the table, now that they’re here.

His hand stills, just for a second, as he’s stirring the eggs, but he doesn’t look at her. “I never hated you.”

“Really? Cause it kind of seemed like you did.”

He throws a quick glance over his shoulder at her before turning back to the eggs. “I was angry for a while, but I’m not anymore.”

“Why?” she asks. “Because of Peggy?” Because that’s the only reason she can figure why he’d ever bother speaking to her again.

There’s a pause before he answers. “No. If anything, that made it harder, the fact that you could hide that from me. When I think about how many times you looked me right in the eye and lied …”

“I never lied about Peggy.”

He takes the eggs off the heat and turns to face her, arms crossed, his expression hard and accusing—and _wow,_ there is really no look of disapproval quite like Captain America’s look of disapproval. “You talked about your aunt to me like she was some stranger I had no connection with, when you knew all along who she was to me. You didn’t have to do that, you could have said nothing about her at all, but instead you played me for a fool.”

He’s right, of course, she never should have mentioned her aunt when she was undercover. It was unprofessional and stupid. And the only reason she did it was because she wanted so badly to share that connection with him and it was the only way she could think of to do it—not that that’s something she can ever explain to him.

“Sounds like you’re still pretty angry,” she says, knowing it’s exactly what she deserves.

His expression changes to something that almost resembles pity for a second, and then he shrugs. “Maybe I am a little, but I’m trying to forgive you.”

“Why?” she asks again. Because if it was her, if their roles were reversed, she’s pretty sure she wouldn’t bother with forgiveness. She’d be perfectly content to harbor a grudge for basically ever over something like that.

He sort of half-smiles. “It was Natasha, actually. She said if I could forgive her for keeping Fury’s secrets, I should do the same for you. Also, she said you gave her a heads up about Pierce coming after me, so I guess I owe you.”

Sharon doesn’t know what to say to that. She’s just glad Nat decided to ignore what she said about not doing her any more favors.

“Eggs are ready,” he says, scooping up the pan and carrying it over to the bar, where he’s already set out plates and forks and paper napkins. There weren’t that many eggs apparently; it’s barely enough food just for him. She stops him before he can dish too much onto her plate, because she knows otherwise he’d give her half and go hungry.

“You sure?” he asks. “That’s hardly any.”

“I’m not really a breakfast person,” she lies.

He shrugs and scrapes the rest of the pan onto his plate. Sits down across from her, unfolds his napkin, and places it neatly in his lap.

Sharon fidgets in her seat, pushing her eggs around on her plate, because it’s all too much, all of a sudden. Having him here, facing up to her own mistakes. She keeps her eyes fixed on her plate because if she looks up she’ll have to look him in the eye and that’s not something she can do right now. She eats her eggs quickly, without tasting a bite. They’re probably amazing, she’s willing to bet Steve Rogers makes damn good scrambled eggs, but she’ll never know because they taste like wet paper in her mouth.

“Nat says to tell you hi, by the way,” he announces between mouthfuls of eggs.

“She was with you?” Sharon asks, surprised and not surprised at the same time. Natasha never said, but then she wouldn’t.

“The last few weeks, yeah. We came closer to finding Bucky with her help than we ever did without her.”

Sharon does look up then. “You never found him?”

And now he’s the one looking down, avoiding her eyes. He stabs at his eggs. “I wanted to keep going, but Sam was going to lose his job at the VA. And Natasha said the trail had gone cold so we might as well give it a rest for a while until there’s a new trail to pick up.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and means it. She knows how important it must be to him, and how much it must hurt, knowing Barnes is out there somewhere, and not being able to find him.

He shakes his head. “Maybe it’s for the best.”

“Is that what you think?”

“No, but that’s what people keep telling me.” His voice is gruff and clipped, and it makes her ache for him.

“Steve—” She doesn’t have a follow-up and his name hangs in the air between them, a plea and a question and an apology all at once.

He stands abruptly and gestures at her plate. “You done?”

She nods; he gathers up their dishes and takes them to the sink, turning his back on her again.

“I better get dressed,” she says. “It’s a half-hour drive up to Rockville.”

He doesn’t say anything, just turns on the hot water and reaches for the dish soap.

* * *

They don’t speak on the drive to the nursing home, which is fine, because Sharon’s busy praying that today will be a good day for Peggy, that she’ll be able to give Steve whatever it is that he needs.

She holds her breath as they walk into the room, tenses in dread as Peggy’s eyes turn toward them—and then exhales in relief as Peggy’s face lights up with recognition.

“Sharon!” she says, smiling. “And Steve! Look at this, two of my favorite people here at the same time. What a wonderful surprise.”

“How are you?” Sharon asks, leaning forward to plant a kiss on her cheek. Peggy’s skin feels cool and fragile against her lips.

Steve hangs back, gone suddenly, adorably bashful, but Peggy isn’t having any of it. “Come here and let me look at you,” she orders him. “Oh, I don’t like your hair like that one bit, I insist you grow it back out at once.”

He cracks a smile at that, and so does Sharon, because it’s impossible not to smile when Peggy’s so very much herself for once. There aren’t enough moments like this anymore. One day, Sharon knows, there won’t be any left at all.

“I’m so pleased you two have finally met. Isn’t my niece a firecracker?” Peggy says with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

“That’s one word for it,” Steve replies dryly.

Sharon feels herself flush but Peggy just cocks an imperious eyebrow at him and barrels onward: “She’s the spitting image of her mother, doesn’t look a thing like my side of the family—thank goodness, because my brother Harrison was not what one would call a looker, bless his soul—but I always say Sharon takes after me in all the ways that matter.”

“I need to go talk to the nurses for a minute,” Sharon says before Peggy can launch into any embarrassing childhood stories. “I’ll let you two catch up.” She squeezes Peggy’s hand and slips out of the room.

Steve emerges after only twenty minutes, which is honestly a pretty good amount of time these days for Peggy. She tires quickly, and when she gets tired she gets confused. His expression is carefully shuttered as he walks toward her, but Sharon can guess how it went. She knows firsthand how Peggy can be fine one minute and lost in the past another; how she can start to tell you something and forget who you are before she gets to the end of the sentence.

Sharon doesn’t say anything as they walk back to car. She figures what Steve needs most right now is space to process and recover. Only after she’s gotten into the car and started the engine does she glance over and realize that he’s crying, tears spilling silently down his cheeks.

She looks away, because it’s too painful to see him like this. Too personal, too _close._ Because she’s been there, literally exactly there, sitting in this same car, in this very same parking lot, crying because she’s losing Peggy piece by piece—but really because Peggy’s losing herself, and it’s too much of an injustice to bear.

She wants to say something, but what is there to say? There are no words in the English language that can make any of this better. Or maybe there are, and she just doesn’t know how to find them. Peggy was the one who always seemed to have the right words for any situation, always knew how to talk you off the ledge and make everything seem better. Sharon’s never had the knack; she’s always been a woman of actions more than words.

She makes a decision, puts the car in gear, and drives to the nearest Big Belly Burger.

“What are we doing?” Steve asks when she turns into the drive-thru.

“Getting you some protein.”

“You think I’m upset because I have low blood sugar?” He looks vaguely offended, but also maybe sort of amused.

“No—Yes. Not exactly.” She shakes her head and tries again. “I think you’re upset because what’s happening to Peggy is awful _and_ I think you have low blood sugar.”

She orders them four Belly Buster combo meals—three for him and one for her—and passes the bags of food over to Steve, who accepts them wordlessly. His eyes and cheeks are still tinged with red, but she’s relieved to see they’re dry now, at least.

She drives to a nearby playground and parks the car. They sit there together in her Dodge Charger, staring straight ahead and eating their burgers and fries in silence. It’s a crisp spring day and the park is full of kids in tiny jackets, followed around by parents carrying hats and sippy cups and baggies full of snacks. The windows of the car are cracked and the sound of children laughing and shrieking fills the air around them. The cacophony is oddly soothing, like a burbling stream or rain pattering on a rooftop.

“Peggy brought me here once when I was a kid,” Sharon says.

Steve glances over at her and then looks away again. “I guess you two close were pretty close.”

“Not especially,” she says, popping a fry into her mouth. “Not back then, anyway. She was sort of like an extra grandparent, I guess, but it’s not like she was a huge part of my life growing up. I had immediate family that I was closer to, and so did she.” Sharon pauses. “Until my parents died when I was sixteen.”

She’s staring straight ahead, but out of the corner of her eye she sees his gaze swing to her face. She keeps going before he can say anything: “Only two years left of high school, my head full of friends and boys and plans for the future, and just like that … everything I’d ever taken for granted was gone. There wasn’t anyone else who could look after me by then so Peggy’s daughter Kathy ended up taking me in. She did her best with me, she really tried, but I just … shut down. I was angry and ungrateful and I wouldn’t let her help me. I didn’t want to let anyone get close to me—until Peggy made me her project. She was retired by then and even more stubborn than I was; she refused to let me push her away. I don’t even know how she did it, but she managed to drag me back into the world. She saved me.”

Sharon shoves her half-eaten burger back into the bag with the rest of her fries. She isn’t that hungry, as it turns out.

“She’s getting worse, isn’t she?” Steve says.

“Yes,” Sharon tells him, because he deserves the truth. He needs to be prepared for what’s coming. “I added your name to the authorized visitors list at the facility. You can see her whenever you like.”

“I think maybe my being there makes it worse. I think I confuse her.”

Sharon looks at him. “It’s the disease that confuses her, not you.”

His eyes meet hers for a moment before he glances away again. “Bucky didn’t recognize me either. He looked at me like I was a stranger. The only two people I have left in the world, and neither of them remembers me. It’s like some kind of cruel cosmic joke.”

“You have other people,” Sharon says. “I know that doesn’t bring either of them back, that it can’t undo anything you’ve been through, but … you still have people who care about you.”

Steve nods, but doesn’t say anything.

There’s nothing else left to say, really, so Sharon drives home. It only takes him a second to collect his things when they get back to her apartment. His bag was already sitting by the door, packed and ready to go.

“Thank you,” he tells her. “For today, and for last night.”

“Where will you go?” she asks.

There’s a pause before he answers. “I was thinking about going back to New York. For a while, anyway. After that I don’t know.” He shrugs.

“I hope you find whatever you’re looking for,” she says, “even if it’s not what you thought you were looking for.”

“I hope that for you too,” he says. And then he startles her by giving her a hug. It’s brief and perfunctory, over almost before she realizes it’s happening. Then he’s walking past her with his bag slung over his shoulder, out the door and into the sunlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, I did just totally drop a reference to DC Comics/Arrow continuity into the middle of a Marvel story. Kudos for noticing! I wanted Steve and Sharon to go somewhere better than McDonald's or Burger King, so they went to Big Belly Burger instead. Marvel really needs their own canon burger chain, don't you think?


	5. Cover Me In Rag And Bone Sympathy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: Peggy Carter dies in this chapter. I feel really bad about it, but she’s ninety-five, y’all. And she appeared to be both bedridden and afflicted with Alzheimer’s in CA:TWS. She wasn’t going to last forever under those circumstances. I’ve tried to handle it respectfully, but this is your trigger warning if you need one.

Sharon seems to have passed some sort of litmus test at the CIA because her supervisor finally sends her into the field. It’s nothing exciting, nothing even approaching a challenge, but it’s something, it’s better, it’s not sitting behind a desk all day every day. There’s still a ridiculous amount of paperwork—she can’t believe the paperwork, what self-respecting intelligence organization actually _writes everything down?_ —but it feels good to be back in the world again.

She can do this. She can start over in this place and prove herself to these people who’ve never heard the name Carter before, and maybe she can even be happy again. She doesn’t have to have a fire inside her. She doesn’t have to love her job or even believe in it. She doesn’t have to be _driven._

The scar on her forearm serves as her reminder: don’t put your faith in institutions, don’t fall for empty promises.

Nothing’s like it used to be but she can live with that. Things are good now. Things are fine.

She’s better off this way. That’s what she keeps telling herself anyway.

* * *

She lets one of the analysts who works down the hall take her out to dinner. He’s sweet and charming and easy to look at so why not? Afterward she lets him take her to bed and it’s good. It’s fine. So what if the face she pictures when he’s inside of her is Steve’s? It’s not like she’s the first woman in history to get off to a mental image of Captain America.

She doesn’t let the analyst spend the night. She can’t stand the thought of waking up in the morning and finding him in her kitchen. He looks hurt when she hands him his clothes and she doesn’t feel a thing.

* * *

The Avengers end up in the news again when some mad scientist-type tries to take out Madison Square Garden with a bunch of homemade bombs.

There’s Steve on TV in his Captain America uniform—it’s a new one, with the traditional red-and-white stripes and an Avengers logo on the sleeve—caught on camera along with Stark and Natasha and Barton. Sharon watches the two-and-a-half minutes of footage on loop for an hour, and then she goes to the gym and does high-intensity intervals on the heavy bag until she can’t feel her arms anymore.

The story is replayed nonstop on all the news channels for days. It’s everywhere, all the time. Sharon ends up spending a lot more time in the gym that week, until a celebrity nude photo hack blessedly diverts the attention of the American media.

* * *

Peggy dies at the end of the summer. She goes quietly and peacefully, surrounded by her family. It’s almost a relief when the end finally comes. Maybe it’s wrong to think of it that way, but the woman lying in that bed wasn’t Peggy, hadn’t been her for a while.

The funeral is small and sparsely attended. It’s so much less than she deserves, but in the wake of SHIELD’s disgrace there are no government honors for the last of its founders. Margaret Carter’s service is no longer considered worthy of recognition.

Maybe she would have preferred it this way: an intimate ceremony for the family and a few close friends. She was more than just her uniform, Sharon reminds herself. Peggy never needed anyone else’s validation, least of all the United States government’s.

Sharon tries to pitch in, concentrates on be helpful and supportive. But she holds herself a little apart from the rest of Peggy’s family, feeling like an intruder. Like she’s sixteen again, an outsider horning into their family because she doesn’t have one of her own. Peggy would have told her not to be so foolish, but Peggy isn’t here anymore, and that’s a harder thing to face than she’d anticipated.

She’s operating on autopilot, barely even registering the faces that pass before her as she receives condolences and handshakes. Until she sees Steve Rogers standing at the back of the church in his Army dress uniform, the old one from WWII. The one Peggy would have seen him in.

Sharon feels her veneer start to crack and turns away before he spots her. She finds an excuse to slip away, some task that needs seeing to, so she won’t have to accept his condolences for her loss. It wouldn’t be right, it wouldn’t be fair. She can’t stand the thought of exchanging platitudes with him, not about Peggy, not today.

He’s there at the graveside too, surrounded by Peggy’s children and grandchildren. They’re delighted he’s come to pay his respects. It’s an honor, a privilege. None of them have ever met the man behind all the family legends, the hero from the news. They treat him like a celebrity and he weathers it nobly. Only someone who really knows him well would be able to see how hard it is for him, how much discomfort he’s trying to hide.

There’s no flag, no “Taps,” no honor guard for Peggy, only Steve Rogers standing there in his old uniform, silently saluting as her casket is lowered into the ground.

* * *

Compared to everything else, the reception at Aunt Kathy’s house after the burial is almost a relief. There are plenty of things to do, plenty of ways Sharon can keep busy. She can refill drinks, fetch ice, wash dishes, take out the trash. She can hide in the kitchen and be helpful without having to talk to anyone. She just has to make it through a few more hours and then she’ll be done. She’ll have survived this day.

She’s in the middle of cutting a pan of brownies when she feels a hand land on her shoulder; she turns and looks up into a familiar and very welcome face. “Trip,” she says, blinking back tears, and falls immediately into his arms.

“Hey, cuz,” he says, wrapping her up tight, and he always did give the best hugs, she’s forgotten how good it feels to be inside one of Trip’s hugs.

They’ve known each other since they could walk. He’s an old family friend, a grandson of one of the original Howling Commandos who served with Peggy and Steve Rogers during the war. When they were kids there were still enough Howling Commandos left to have a reunion every Memorial Day, but the last reunion was over a decade ago. Sharon’s lost touch with most of the other families by now, but not Trip. She and Trip have a special connection because they both followed Peggy into SHIELD. He’s a little older than Sharon so he got there before her, and helped mentor her through her first year at the academy.

She pulls back so she can get a good look at him and then punches him in the arm. “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”

She looked for him after SHIELD’s collapse, but the last info she could find was that he was at the Hub when everything fell apart. After that there was nothing. He just disappeared. A lot of people disappeared that day, choosing to fade into obscurity rather than face up to the subpoenas and debriefings and general scorn of the intelligence community, not to mention the potential target painted on the back of every covert agent outed in the SHIELD leak.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” he says, grinning sheepishly. “Been laying low.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good. I’m real good, actually. What about you, I hear you’re at the CIA now. What’s that like?”

“It’s the CIA, what do you think?”

“Sucks?”

“Pretty much.”

Trip laughs. “Drastic times call for drastic measures, I guess.” He goes suddenly serious. “Listen, I’m sorry about Peggy, I know what she meant to you.”

Sharon shakes her head. “I’m just so glad you’re here.”

He smiles. “Yeah, me too.” And then his smile fades. “Thing is, though, I can’t really stay.”

“No—”

“I’m not even supposed to be here, but I told them no way were they gonna keep me from paying my respects today.”

“They who?” She narrows her eyes at him. “Who are you working for?”

The only answer he gives her is a grin. “Keep the faith, Sharon.” He pulls her in for one last hug and she clings to him, trying to make the moment last. “I’ll tell you all about it one day,” he says. “Promise.” He lets go and gestures behind her. “I think someone’s looking for you.”

Sharon turns around. Steve is standing in the doorway of the kitchen holding his service cap in his hand. She hears the back door click shut behind her as Trip lets himself out.

“Steve,” she says, her head reeling. “You’re here.” She never thought he’d show up here. She assumed he would have had enough after the memorial and graveside.

He ducks his head. “Sharon.” It’s the first time she’s ever heard him say her name and it sends a shiver traveling down her spine and all the way to the soles of her feet.

There’s a burst of laughter from the dining room. Ed, Peggy’s eldest son, is out there holding court, re-telling old stories about his parents.

“I was afraid you were avoiding me,” Steve says. He’s let his hair grow out again, just like Peggy wanted.

“I think I was,” Sharon admits, because she can’t bring herself to lie to him today any more than she can offer him platitudes.

Instead of looking hurt or offended, he smiles, which takes her by surprise. “Sorry,” he says off her expression. “The honesty was unexpected. And sort of refreshing.”

“I’m not always a liar.”

“I know that,” he says, shaking his head slightly. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “Everything about today is awful, and I know that you—I know how hard this all must be and I’m sorry and I …” She realizes she’s just rambling and stops. “Are you okay?” she asks him.

There’s this smile that Steve gives people when he’s trying to be polite—which is almost all of the time, really—or when he’s trying to pretend that everything’s A-OK even though it’s not. It’s taut and it’s hollow and it doesn’t reach his eyes, and it’s the smile he offers Sharon now.

“Sure,” he says, shrugging. “I mean as well as can be expected, I guess.” Then he inclines his head, and in a different, more sincere voice, he says: “Are you?”

She lets out a sort of half-laugh. “Not even remotely.”

Before either of them can say anything else one of Sharon’s teenaged cousins lumbers into the kitchen in a pair of Doc Martens and a suit that’s at least a size too small for him. He freezes when he notices Steve, eyes widening.

“Can I get you something, Jacob?” Sharon asks pointedly.

He looks at her, pushing his floppy hair out of his eyes, and then back at Steve, open-mouthed. “Uh, yeah,” he mumbles. “Mom, uh, said there were brownies in here that I should set out?”

“Here.” Sharon shoves the brownie pan at him and practically pushes him out of the kitchen. He gawks over his shoulder at Steve all the way out the door.

When he’s finally gone she turns back to Steve, who’s stifling a smile, his shoulders shaking gently with suppressed laughter.

She lets herself smile too, for the first time all day.

He shoves his hands in his pockets and regards her thoughtfully. “Would you like a ride home?” he asks.

Sharon closes her eyes. Nods. “Yes, please.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional headcanon for the Agent Carter fans: Peggy’s son, Ed, is actually named Edwin, after her good friend Edwin Jarvis. I really wanted to try and work some mention of Angie in here somehow, but I felt like the odds of her being still living and able-bodied enough to make it the funeral were slim. Imagine instead that Angie and Peggy enjoyed a lifelong friendship until Angie died a few years ago, and that some of the people at the funeral are Angie’s children and grandchildren.


	6. A Permanent Piece Of My Medium-Sized American Heart

He holds the car door open for her, because of course he does, because he’s Captain America.

It’s a shiny new luxury SUV: buttery leather seats, electric everything, that intoxicating new car smell. “It’s a loaner,” he says apologetically, as if wealth is something to be embarrassed by.

Sharon plays with the satellite radio, flipping through the stations so they don’t have to talk. Until she stumbles across a Carole King song on the seventies station. She lets go of the dial and sinks back into her seat.

“Peggy really liked this song,” she says, hugging herself as the taillights ahead blur and streak across her vision.

Steve glances over at her and his grip tightens on the steering wheel. “I’ve heard this one before,” he says. “It’s a good song.”

* * *

She doesn’t exactly remember inviting him in but she must have because here he is in her apartment, holding a beer from her fridge. She’s definitely not drunk—she’s barely touched the beer in her own hand—but she feels muddled and lightheaded and she doesn’t know if it’s the stress of the day catching up to her or if it’s being this close to Steve again. Maybe both. Probably both.

His uniform coat’s hanging neatly over the back of one her chairs and his tie is pulled loose and he looks like a dream, like he just stepped out of a black-and-white movie. In retrospect, it was probably a mistake pulling up _Tapestry_ on her iPod, but “So Far Away” is coming out of the speakers, so that ship has sailed already.

“Do you want something to eat?” Sharon asks.

His mouth quirks. “You’re always trying to feed me.”

“Because I know you’re always hungry.”

His mouth opens and then closes again. He looks indignant. “I’m not—”

“Don’t lie to me, Captain Rogers, I’ve read your file. In fact _wrote_ about half of it so I happen to know exactly how many calories you consume per day.” She’s not actually sure they’re at the point where they can joke about this yet, but she hopes so. She really, really hopes so.

He shakes his head slowly, and she’s relieved to see the hint of a smile reveal itself. “I’m good right now, thanks. I had something called hamburger surprise at Kathy’s.” He presses a hand against his stomach. “I may never eat again.”

“Ah, yes, Aunt Lynnette’s specialty. She says the secret ingredient is love, but I’m pretty sure it’s Spam.”

His mouth curls into a frown, which is not the reaction she was going for. “I’m glad I got to meet them—Peggy’s family. It seems like she had a good life.”

“I think she did,” Sharon says, feeling awkward and helpless. She doesn’t know if it’s painful it for him to think about the life Peggy lived without him, or if it’s a comfort. She hopes it’s a comfort.

It occurs to her that he’s not going to sit down unless she does, so she goes over to the couch and takes a seat at one end of the sectional, up against the armrest. He follows her lead, sitting at the far opposite end. There’s enough room for a pack of large dogs to curl up in the L-shaped space between them, but it still doesn’t feel like enough space.

She takes a gulp of beer. “So how’s New York?” she asks, flailing for safe conversational territory and landing on the most banal opener this side of the weather.

“Not so bad,” he says with a shrug. “I’ve been staying at Stark Tower.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “I think you mean Avengers Tower.”

His nose wrinkles. “Tony’s more attached to the name than the rest of us.”

“Is that where Natasha is?” Sharon still gets postcards from her occasionally—always from somewhere different, always with a postmark that doesn’t match—but she hasn’t actually talked to her in a while.

His brow knits. “Not lately, she’s been out of touch for a few weeks.”

“Is she okay?” Sharon asks, suddenly worried.

“As far as I know. She’s just taking care of some personal business—that’s what she said, anyway. Barton’s with her. I assume they can take care of themselves.”

Sharon snorts. “Yeah, those two never get into _any_ trouble.”

She’s rewarded with a faint smile and she’s willing to call it a win. But then they fall into one of those weird conversational lulls. Sharon fidgets, and ends up pulling her feet up on the couch so she’s sitting cross-legged.

“I hear you’re working for the CIA now,” Steve ventures, dutifully holding up his share of the small talk.

“Who told you that?” she asks. Because if someone other than Natasha has been talking about her with Steve, Sharon wants to know about it.

“Maria.”

 _Maria._ She doesn’t know why she’s surprised that he’s chummy with Maria Hill. It makes sense, now that they’re both hanging around with Tony Stark. She’s dying to ask Steve why they were talking about her, what the hell Hill’s doing at Stark Industries, if either of them have heard from Fury. But she’s not in the loop anymore for a reason. She wants to believe Hill still has a plan for her, but it’s possible she’s simply been discarded.

“So how do you like it there?” he asks.

“I don’t,” she says flatly, hoping maybe he’ll take it back to Hill. Maybe Sharon will finally get a reprieve from her Purgatory.

“You must miss SHIELD.” His face twists ruefully. “I guess you’ve got me to thank for that.”

She takes a drink of beer and shakes her head. “I miss what I thought SHIELD was. I certainly don’t miss working for HYDRA. I’m better off now,” she tells him, just like she’s been telling herself for months.

He frowns, like he doesn’t believe her. Like this guilt is something he’s going to carry on top of everything else.

She sits up and scoots toward him on the couch a little. There’s still a mile of space between them. A hundred miles. “You did the right thing,” she tells him. “You know that.”

His frown only deepens. “I destroyed Peggy’s legacy.”

“Bullshit,” Sharon says. “Her legacy isn’t that small; not even Captain America can tear it down. And don’t you think for a second she wouldn’t have done the exact same thing under the circumstances. She would have been proud of you.”

“I miss her,” he says, suddenly, utterly forlorn. There’s so much pain in his expression, it’s hard to look directly at him.

“I miss her, too,” Sharon says into her beer bottle. She will _not_ cry in front of him. In front of anyone, but especially not in front of _him._

“I should have come down here to see her more. I should have made more time.” His voice comes out rough and raspy. It hurts to even hear it.

“She wouldn’t have known you,” Sharon mutters, shaking her head, trying to keep the painful memories in check. “The last couple of months were bad. She wouldn’t have even known you were there.”

“ _I_ would have known.”

She makes herself look at him. He’s sitting forward on the couch, elbows resting on his knees, shoulders slumped. His beer bottle hangs limply from one hand. He looks defeated and embittered. _Heartsick._

“Did you ever find him?” Sharon asks.

He doesn’t have to ask which _him_ she’s talking about. He shakes his head slowly. “I stopped looking. I thought maybe he’d find me.” He tilts his head with a wry grimace. “Guess I was wrong.”

“Maybe he still will.”

His eyes finds hers and hold them. The moment stretches out until it becomes uncomfortable. “I should go,” he says, standing abruptly.

He carries his beer bottle into the kitchen and sets it on the counter before shrugging into his uniform jacket. Sharon trails him to the front door. He’s fumbling with his buttons and without thinking she reaches out to help him. He drops his hands, letting her fasten the top two buttons for him. She can feel his eyes on her, feel the rise and fall of his chest under fingers. They’re standing so close, only inches apart. It’s closer than they’ve ever been before.

“There,” she says when she’s finished with the buttons. She doesn’t trust herself to look up at his face so she focuses on his chest instead. His lopsided khaki tie, the buttons of his olive drab shirt, the SSR insignia on his lapels. She can feel his breath, warm on the top of her head, smelling faintly of beer. She can smell his aftershave, too, something subtle and classic.

His hand comes up to touch her cheek, soft and hesitant, and then he’s tilting her face up to his. He gazes down at her with soft blue eyes and she’s mesmerized by how beautiful his eyelashes are. Why has she never noticed his eyelashes before? They’re amazing.

When their lips meet there’s a jolt of electricity that forms into a ball and settles in the pit of her stomach. She only has a moment to appreciate the warm sweetness of his lips before their mouths are opening hungrily and his tongue is gently exploring her mouth and she’s melting into his arms like butter on a hot roll.

She doesn’t trust her legs to hold her up but it’s okay because his arms are wrapped around her, pulling her close, and she feels so safe, so protected. She wants to stay there forever, in the shelter of his arms, just lose herself in him.

His kisses grow more urgent and she responds enthusiastically. One of his hands moves up to cup her breast and then he’s pushing her up against the wall. It’s just the right amount of rough and she wants him so bad right now, she’s never wanted anything this much. Her fingers dig into his glutes, pulling him closer, grinding their hips together. He inhales sharply and starts kissing his way down her throat. His hand slides down the outside of her thigh, reaching for the hem of her skirt. _Oh god,_ she thinks—

_This isn’t right._

The thought rings in her head like a klaxon. She tries to ignore it but she can’t turn it off.

They shouldn’t be doing this. They’ve just come from Peggy’s funeral, for god’s sake. The only reason this is happening is because they’re both hurting. And then it comes to her, the worst thought of all: he’s not thinking about her right now, he’s thinking about Peggy. Not the Peggy that Sharon knew but _his_ Peggy, the woman he knew in the war. The girl he kissed before crashing his plane into the ice.

“Wait,” she gasps, pushing him away.

He lets go of her immediately. His brow knits in concern. He’s confused, worried. Afraid he’s done something wrong.

He has. They both have.

“I’m not her,” Sharon says. Her throat feels like sandpaper.

She knows from the expression that passes across his face that it’s the worst thing she could have possibly said. He flinches—actually _flinches_ —away from her and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand like he’s trying to scrub away their kisses.

She feels sick. She feels ashamed. She never should have let this happen. Never should have let it go this far.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Sharon says. “Whatever we think we’re feeling right now isn’t real. It’s displacement. You’re in pain and you miss her but I can’t take her place.”

He presses his head back against the wall behind him and squeezes his eyes shut.

“All those months on your security detail made me think I feel something that I don’t,” she barrels on, the words all coming out in a rush. “And it’s not fair to put that on you, especially now. I’ve just been so lonely since SHIELD—” She stops. Takes a breath. “I’m sorry.”

“No, _I’m_ sorry,” he says, pushing off from the wall. She winces at the sudden sharpness of his tone. “I should go,” he says, already moving toward the door.

“Steve—”

“For the record,” he says, jerking the door open and turning on her with a stony gaze. “I’ve never once confused you with Peggy.”

And then he walks out, slamming the door behind him before she has a chance to say anything else.

It’s like a fist to the gut. Part of her wants to run after him and part of her wants to crumple to the floor and weep.

Instead she makes her way into the living room and seizes her iPod, which is playing “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” and if she doesn’t make it stop _right this fucking second_ she is going to lose it. That’s when she notices Steve’s service cap sitting on the breakfast bar. He left it behind in his rush to get away from her.

It’s a narrow sliver of hope. Maybe he’ll come back for it and they can talk. They can find a way to fix this. To get past it.

She picks up the hat and presses the emblem against her lips. It smells faintly of moth balls, but also it smells like Steve. She carries it reverently into the living room, sets it on the coffee table, and sinks down onto the couch.

She sits there waiting for a half hour, futilely. He doesn’t come back. Eventually she gets up, changes out of her funeral clothes, and scrubs all the makeup off her face. Then she crawls into bed and cries herself to sleep.

* * *

In the morning she gets up and gets dressed and goes to work like it’s any other day. She feels like she’s been dragged behind a speeding car but she tells herself it’s the stress of the funeral and losing Peggy.

No one she works with knows who Peggy Carter was but they know Sharon took a personal day for a funeral so they’re all extra nice to her. She hates it. She wishes they’d just leave her alone. One of the admins actually brings her a casserole. The nice analyst she slept with leaves a condolence card on her desk. She wants to die. At the end of the day she tucks her casserole under her arm and practically sprints out the door.

When she gets home she goes straight to the fridge and exchanges the casserole for a bottle of wine. She pours herself a generous a glass of chardonnay and carries it into the living room. Only then does she notice the WWII service cap that’s still sitting on her coffee table. She’d forgotten it was there.

Her chest constricts so tightly she feels like she can’t breathe and she has to grip the back of the couch to steady herself.

She was wrong. She was so wrong.

Her feelings for Steve _are_ real. It seems so clear to her now. How could she have ever thought otherwise?

Sharon’s never really been in love before. She’s been in some relationships that were pretty good and some that were pretty bad. But she’s never felt this sort of urgent, all-consuming _need_ before. _This,_ she thinks wonderingly, _this_ must be what love feels like.

Not that it matters now. She pushed him away. It’s too late to take it back.

Maybe it’s for the best. Just because her feelings are real doesn’t mean his were. She can’t be a replacement for Peggy. She would do almost anything for him but she can’t be that, even if she wanted to be. He would have figured it out eventually.

* * *

The next day Sharon carefully wraps Steve’s hat in tissue paper, packs it in a box, and mails it back to him c/o Maria Hill at Stark Industries, Manhattan.

She doesn’t have any claim on him, especially now that Peggy’s gone. She was their only connection and without it they’re nothing to each other. They might as well be strangers. Sharon’s just going to have to learn to function around the ache that’s taken up residence in her heart.

* * *

Natasha calls a week later. Sharon’s so glad to hear her voice she almost wants to cry.

“Hey, I’m sorry about your aunt,” Natasha says. “I just heard.”

“Thanks,” Sharon says, sinking back on the couch wearily. She’s so tired of doing this with everyone and she _really_ doesn’t want to do it with Natasha. They’re not supposed to have to talk about feelings. It’s one of her favorite things about their relationship.

“You okay?” Natasha asks.

“Yep, I’m great,” Sharon says, so falsely chipper it even sounds hollow to her own ears. “So how’s Barton?” she asks archly, steering the conversation in another direction.

“A walking human disaster,” Natasha says, her voice warm and fond. “Same as always.”

“Glad to hear it,” Sharon says, smiling. At least someone she knows is happy. If a couple of scarred and hardened souls like Romanoff and Barton can find love there may be hope for Sharon yet.

“So … feel free to tell me if this is none of my fucking business,” Natasha says casually, “but did something happen between you and Rogers?”

The smile fades from Sharon’s lips. She doesn’t say anything.

“Well I guess that answers my question,” Natasha says. “You wanna talk about it?”

“I really, really don’t,” Sharon says.

“Okay,” Natasha says, and launches into a story about trying to play Cards Against Humanity with Thor and Bruce Banner. Within a few minutes Sharon’s laughing so hard her eyes are tearing up.

Natasha is definitely her favorite person.

 


	7. Gonna Be A Blank Slate, Gonna Wear A White Cape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These next few chapters get a bit plotty. Sorry if that’s not your thing, but it's only temporary. And I promise all of this is gonna tie back in to CA:TWS in a big way—you’ll see how by the end of the next chapter.

Life goes back to normal, for a certain value of normal. Weeks pass, a month, and Sharon goes from thinking about Steve constantly to only thinking about him ten or twenty times a day. Hey, it’s an improvement; she’ll take it.

Christmas Eve she gets stuck on a stakeout outside the Sudanese embassy, which is just as well because it gives her an excuse not to think too hard about the fact that she doesn’t have anywhere better to be. On hour four of sitting in a Chevy Tahoe that reeks of beef jerky and BO from the last guy who took it out of the motor pool, watching a door than no one’s gone in or out of all evening, Sharon calls Natasha.

She answers on the second ring. “Hey!” Nat shouts cheerily. There’s a lot of noise in the background: music and people talking, like she’s at a party.

“Merry Christmas,” Sharon says. “Sounds festive there, are you in New York?”

“Yeah, Stark had everyone over for dinner because of the holiday or something.” She sounds predictably disdainful; Natasha is not a fan of holidays.

“Thought you didn’t like Christmas. Or Tony Stark.”

“I don’t, but it’s supposed to be team bonding or some shit. Clint wanted to come, and you know what a goddamn baby he can be when he doesn’t get his way.”

“Just admit you like them,” Sharon teases. “You like being an Avenger.”

“Whatever,” Natasha says. “Some of them are okay. You should come up and visit sometime, you know. I’ll introduce you to everyone. It’ll be fun.”

“Yeah, I think I’m going to pass, but thanks for the offer.”

“You can’t avoid him forever, you know.”

The thought of seeing Steve again fills Sharon with simultaneous feelings of dread and longing, but dread currently has the edge up on longing. “I think I probably can, as a matter of fact.”

“He looks good tonight.” It’s gotten quieter on Natasha’s end, like she’s stepped away from the party. “He actually smiled a couple of times. He hasn’t been doing a lot of that lately.”

“He wouldn’t be smiling at all if I was there,” Sharon says. “I’d better go, I’m working tonight. Don’t forget to drag Clint under the mistletoe or he’ll get his feelings hurt.”

“Ugh,” Natasha says. “Holidays.”

* * *

Toward the end of January, Sharon gets called into the office of her division chief. She’s been staring at surveillance reports all morning and she uses the short walk down the hall to stretch her neck and shoulders. Outside his office, the admin nods to tell her to go on in.

Sharon opens the door and waits on the threshold, unsure if this is a come in and talk meeting or a stand there for a minute while I tell you something meeting. There’s someone else in his office already, a woman, brunette, sitting in one of the chairs across from his desk with her back to Sharon.

“Come in and close the door,” Division Chief Tolman tells her. He’s a gruff, grizzled man who looks more like a college English professor than a veteran intelligence officer.

Sharon steps inside, pushing the door closed behind her, and the other woman turns around. It’s Maria Hill.

Sharon’s not used to seeing Hill out of her SHIELD tac uniform. The dissonance of finding her here at Langley in a couture business suit and four-inch Louboutins is momentarily disorienting.

“I understand you’re acquainted with Ms. Hill,” Tolman says.

“Yes, sir.” Sharon nods a greeting at Hill. “ _Ms._ Hill.”

Hill’s mouth twists into the barest hint of a smile. “Agent Carter.”

“Stark Industries has requested our cooperation with a confidential security matter,” Tolman says. “The name Miguel Pesado mean anything to you?”

It does, and since the records of that op were dumped on the internet during the SHIELD leak there’s no point in pretending otherwise. “Also known as El Alacrán,” Sharon says. “He’s a key figure in Argentine drug trafficking and organized crime, a middle-man used by a lot of the bigger players. Drugs are his bread and butter, but he’ll smuggle anything if there’s enough money in it. I had some dealings with him during an undercover op in the Santa Fe province a couple of years ago.”

“We’d like the opportunity to ask him some questions,” Hill says mildly, “but he’s proven to be a difficult man to nail down.”

“He’s careful,” Sharon says. “Stays out of the spotlight. He moves his operation around a lot, conducts all his legitimate business under a rotating roster of aliases, surrounds himself with private security—ex-special forces, some of them.”

“Think you can get close to him?” Tolman asks.

Pesado hadn’t been the target of the op, just a means to an end, and Sharon had been purposefully vague about her dealings with him in the after-action report. Unlike the CIA, SHIELD didn’t believe in putting _all_ of their secrets on the record—which was maybe bad in light of the HYDRA thing, but also good given that every single one of those records ended up in the public domain. There’s reason believe that even if Pesado has happened to find the right files on the internet—which is a pretty big if—her cover should still be intact.

She nods. “Absolutely.”

“I’d like to send you down there with one of my associates,” Hill says. “I’m hoping you’ll be able to get him into a room with Pesado.”

Sharon tries to imagine what favors Stark Industries must have traded to get the CIA to loan out one of their agents. Some piece of proprietary technology, probably. Something shiny and new that no one else has yet. Stark probably has shelves of tech just lying around that the CIA would love to get their hands on. They probably hand them out to the government like candy, trading prototypes for favors.

Sharon links her hands behind her back and looks at Hill. “Why is Stark Industries interested in Miguel Pesado?”

Hill responds with an expressionless smile.

Tolman shifts in his chair. “Let me be clear, Carter: this operation does not have the sanction of the United States government. Your presence there would be strictly advisory—and unofficial.”

Which means if anything goes wrong they’ll deny all knowledge. Fine, whatever. She’s not new to this.

“I’m in,” Sharon says.

“Glad to hear it,” Hill says. “We’re wheels up at 18:00.”

* * *

There’s a Stark Industries jet waiting for her on the tarmac at Dulles. As Sharon approaches, Maria Hill disembarks, gliding down the stairs in her tasteful and very expensive business pumps like she was born wearing them. She greets Sharon with a smile that’s far warmer than anything she exhibited in Tolman’s office and extends her hand. “I appreciate you doing this for us, Sharon.”

“I appreciate you asking me.” Sharon glances up at the jet, a modest-sized Gulfstream with the Stark Industries logo splashed across the side. “Who’s my contact?”

“He’s inside.” Hill flashes another smile, almost arch this time, before leaving Sharon to make her own way onto the plane.

Inside it looks more or less like a regular passenger jet only smaller and cleaner and better smelling. There’s a flight attendant waiting just inside the door, next to the cockpit. “Good evening,” she says, flashing a beauty pageant smile to go with her beauty pageant hair and make-up. “Welcome aboard.”

She relieves Sharon of her carry-on and stows it in a compartment near the exit door. “We’ll be taking off in just a few minutes. Can I get you something to drink in the meantime?”

“Coffee, please,” Sharon answers. There’s a lot of ground to cover before they touch down in Rosario; it’s going to be a long night.

The flight attendant gestures at a curtained divider. “You can take a seat wherever you’d like.”

Sharon pushes her way through the divider with her briefcase and steps into the main cabin, which looks nothing at all like a regular passenger jet. It’s more like a cross between a luxury limousine and a luxury hotel. There’s a big-screen TV at the far end of the cabin, a champagne-colored leather couch running along one side of the plane, and a pair of cushy-looking chairs on either side of a table—

She inhales sharply. Steve Rogers is sitting in the farthest chair. He’s hunched over a tablet, engrossed, but he looks up at her intake of breath. He doesn’t smile. “You made it.”

“What’s going on?” she asks.

“Exactly what Maria told you.” His expression is flat and unreadable. Neither warm nor cold.

“You work for Stark Industries corporate security now? Since when?”

He inclines his head. “She may have been slightly misleading; it’s easier if my involvement is kept under wraps.”

“Involvement in what?” He doesn’t say anything. “What do you want with Miguel Pesado?”

A muscle tightens in Steve’s jaw. “I just need to ask him some questions.”

“Why does Captain America need to talk to an Argentine drug trafficker?” Sharon demands.

He presses his lips together. “It’s better if you don’t know.”

“Better for who?” she shoots back.

“I just need you to get me close to him. Let me worry about the rest.”

She huffs out a laugh of disbelief. “You expect me to fly down to Rosario and sneak you into a drug smuggler’s inner circle without even knowing why I’m doing it?”

Steve gazes at her with absolute seriousness. “That’s what I’m asking you to do, yes.”

The flight attendant brushes past with Sharon’s coffee. She sets it in front of the empty chair across from Steve and flashes a mouthful of brilliant white teeth. “We’re just about ready for takeoff if you two would like to find your seats and fasten your seat belts.” Then she glides past again, disappearing into the front of the plane.

Steve’s eyes are still locked onto Sharon’s. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to do it,” he says quietly. “There’s still time to get off the plane if you want to change your mind.”

She glares at him. And then she sits down in the chair across from him and fastens her seat belt.

It doesn’t matter that he won’t tell her what’s going on or that none of this makes sense or that she has no idea how the two of them are even going to be able to work together.

It’s Steve Rogers. She would follow him through the Nine Circles of Hell if he asked her to.

* * *

An hour into the flight, Sharon’s poring over all the latest intel on Pesado that Hill’s collected for them—aliases, business associates, financial records—when she feels Steve’s eyes on her. He’s supposed to be studying maps and satellite images of Rosario, familiarizing himself with the city before they get there, but instead he’s just sitting there _staring_ at her.

It makes her itch, knowing that his eyes are on her—those beautiful, blue, expressive eyes … _Shut up shut up shut up. Do not think about it,_ she tells herself, because she’s going to be a fucking  professional on this job if it kills her.

He clears his throat. “We need to talk about something.”

_Oh god, please no._

She looks up from her tablet. Doesn’t say anything.

He shifts in his seat, looks down at his lap, then back up at her with the guiltiest, most pathetically hangdog expression she’s ever seen. It takes every ounce of her willpower not to jump up and give him a hug.

“I owe you an apology,” he says.

“You really don’t,” she cuts in before he can say anything else.

He keeps going anyway: “It was an emotional day—for both of us—and I took advantage.”

“You weren’t the only one doing the kissing,” she says, almost under her breath.

He cringes, like just hearing the word— _kissing_ —is painful for him. Or maybe it’s just hearing the word in relation to her.

“It was a mistake,” he says. “I regret it, and I want you to know it won’t happen again.”

It hurts even more than she thought it would. She can’t speak, can’t even swallow.

“I need to know that we’re okay. That we’re going to be able to work together.”

She forces a thin-lipped smile. “We’re fine,” she hears herself say. “It’s like it never happened.”

* * *

Sharon throws herself into the work. She spends the next five hours of the flight absorbing all the intel and the five hours after that coming up with a plan to get them close to Pesado.

“No way,” Steve says when she finishes explaining it to him. “You’re not going in there alone.”

“It’s the only way this works.”

“You’re talking about walking in there completely unarmed.”

Sharon feels herself losing patience. She’s already explained this part. Twice. “I have to be unarmed because they’re going to search me. No weapons, no comms. It’s the only way I get close to him. I’ve done it before.”

Steve shakes his head. “There’s got to be a better way.”

“Maybe if you gave me more time—”

“There isn’t any,” he bites back.

“Then tell me why we’re doing this!” she explodes. “If I knew what you were after I might be able to find another way to get what you need.”

He clamps his mouth shut, his expression going hard, and just for a second, Sharon contemplates punching him right in his stubborn face.

“I don’t like being kept in the dark,” she says through gritted teeth.

Steve crosses his arms, unmoved. “Your objections are noted.”

She counts down from three, exhaling a long, slow breath. “Fine, then this is the way it has to be.” He’s not the only one on this plane who can be stubborn.

He reaches for the tablet and swipes through the satellite images of the club. “So while you’re in there alone, unarmed, and surrounded by Pesado’s trained killers, you want me standing in the alley twiddling my thumbs.”

“You won’t be twiddling your thumbs, you’ve got a very important job to do.”

He runs a hand over the nape of his neck, frowning. “A monkey could do my job. Let me go in with you so that at least I’ve got a fighting chance to get you out of there if something goes wrong. I’m a resource, you need to be using me.”

“If we were punching our way through the front door, believe me, you’d be our first line of offense. But this job requires a little more finesse.”

“I have finesse,” he says defensively. “I can finesse.”

“You’re an internationally renowned celebrity. You walk into that club and someone’s going to recognize you. And then they’ll start taking pictures that will end up on every gossip site on the internet, destroying any possibility of keeping a lid on your involvement in whatever this little operation is. Meanwhile, Pesado’s going to connect the two of us and shoot me in the head while you’re busy signing autographs.”

“I don’t like this plan,” Steve says.

Sharon crosses her arms and gives him a tight smile. “Your objections are noted.”

* * *

There was snow in the forecast for D.C. when they left, but it’s summertime when they step off the plane in Argentina: ninety degrees and humid as a hot sponge.

There’s a rental car waiting for them at the airport in Rosario. They sign for it using the fake identities Hill provided for them. Steve throws their bags in the trunk and drives them to a _discoteca_ called El Sitio. They park down the street and scope out the security cameras, the potential blind spots, the various exits.

When they’re sure they’ve got it all down they hit the nearest home improvement store. Once they’ve got the supplies they need, they stop off at a real estate agent’s office to pick up the key to a warehouse that was rented only a few short hours ago by a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary of Stark Industries.

Steve’s Spanish is minimal so Sharon does the talking. The agent is delighted to have earned a commission on the warehouse—judging from his office he’s not earning that many commissions. He gives them a map he printed off the internet for them, advice about jiggling the key in a sticky lock, and a complimentary bag of _alfajores_ —dulce de leche cookies. Sharon gives all the cookies to Steve.

When they get to the warehouse she gets out and scouts around the place while he pulls the car inside and out of sight. It’s in a run-down industrial area on the south side of town. Most of the buildings around them are either abandoned or for sale. It’s like a ghost town. She wouldn’t be surprised to see a tumbleweed blowing down the street.

Steve wanders up behind her, chewing on a protein bar. “How’s it look?”

Sharon smiles. “Perfect.”

* * *

Steve tapes cardboard over the warehouse’s few windows while Sharon switches out the license plates on the car with another set that can’t be traced back to Stark Industries. Then she unfolds a large plastic tarp and duct tapes it into the trunk. When that’s done she unzips her bag and starts stripping off the pantsuit she wore on the plane.

“That should just about do—” Steve stops short when he comes upon her rifling through her bag in nothing but her bra and panties. He spins around so his back is to her. “Sorry, uh, the windows are all done.”

“Good.” She wriggles into her dress—a flimsy gold sheath that barely covers her butt cheeks—tugs it down over her hips, and checks to make sure her breasts are covered—or at least as covered as they’re going to get in this thing. “Okay, it’s safe,” she says.

He turns around. His eyes widen slightly as takes in the dress, but he doesn’t say anything.

Sharon kneels to retrieve her shoes from her bag and manages not to give him an eyeful of her ass in the process. “You’d better get changed, too,” she says.

While she pulls out her makeup case, he walks around the car to his own bag. She tries not watch as he strips off his shirt. Tries not look at his bare shoulders, or to think about how it felt to have those arms around her, the way his hands had skimmed over her—

_Stop it._

She turns her back on him and flips open her compact. Except the mirror keeps giving her little glimpses of his bare arms, the waistband of his underwear, the backs of his thighs, as if it isn’t already hot enough in this damned warehouse. She keeps messing up her eyeliner and by the time he wanders back around to her side of the car in his black pants, white button-down, and plain black tie, she’s cursing under her breath and scrubbing at her eyelid.

“Everything okay?” he asks, eyebrow raised.

She thrusts the mirror at him. “Hold this for me. It’s murder doing this with one hand.”

He stands there, patiently holding the mirror and watching while she draws on thick black cat-eyes and applies a coat of mascara. It’s just another minute to do her lipstick and then she’s done. “How do I look?” she asks, spinning in front of him.

“Great.” He clears his throat. “Good. I mean, you look good to go.”

“You’ve got the gun?” she asks. “And the duct tape?”

He nods.

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s go.”

* * *

They don’t talk in the car.

Sharon squeezes her small sequined clutch until her knuckles turn white. All that’s in it is an untraceable burner phone, three thousand Argentine pesos, a tube of lipstick, and a condom. There’s a small, thin blade hidden in the lining, the only weapon she dares bring with her, but the reality is that if things go wrong it probably won’t do her any good. She feels naked in a way that has nothing to do with the skimpiness of her dress. She shifts in her seat, tugging her skirt down over her legs. Steve glances over at her and then quickly away.

He pulls the car over down the block from a four-star hotel. This is where she gets off.

“See you in two hours,” she says.

“Two hours,” he echoes.

She reaches for the door handle—

“Stay alive,” he tells her, frowning.

“You too.” She gets out of the car and walks away.

 


	8. The Virtue of a Proportional Response

Sharon sits at the bar of the hotel nursing a glass of wine, giving Steve time to stash the car and get himself into position. Her phone is sitting out on the bar so she can keep track of the time. Steve has the number but he won’t call unless they need to abort.

A couple of men try to hit on her but she dissuades them with a story about a boyfriend who’s meeting her later. When the proper amount of time has passed, she goes into the bathroom to touch up her lipstick, and then she goes outside and lets one of the valets hail her a cab.

“El Sitio, por favor,” she tells the driver.

* * *

She doesn’t look for Steve as she steps out of the cab, but she knows he’s there somewhere, and that he’s watching her.

It’s a different club than the one Pesado worked out of the last time she was in Rosario. This one’s more crowded, more trendy, more noisy. She recognizes the doorman, though, and one of the bartenders. Pesado routinely changes locations and changes names, but he puts a high value on loyalty so he tends to keep the same people around him.

She catches the attention of the bartender she recognizes and orders a Campari and soda—Pesado’s favorite drink. When he brings it she holds up a $500 tip so that he has to lean over the bar towards her. “Dile a El Alacrán que un amigo de muchos años tiene una oportuidad de negocio para él,” she says into his ear before letting go of the money. _Tell the Scorpion that an old friend has a business opportunity for him._

He gives her an expressionless once-over. “¿Su nombre?”

“Angela O’Rourke,” she says, giving him the name of her old cover.

He nods and moves away. She sips her drink, watching as he pulls out his phone and types a text message before going back to serving customers. Sharon gives it a few seconds, then looks directly into the security camera above the bar and gives her best sultry smile. A few minutes later she sees the bartender take out his phone again and read something on the screen.

He takes his time making his way back over to her. “Dice que esperar aquí,” he tells her as he passes by. _He says to wait here._

Sharon settles in, expecting to be kept waiting awhile. Like a lot of petty tyrants, Pesado likes to make people wait on him, just to remind them that he can. She warned Steve about it; she just hopes he doesn’t get too antsy.

She waits almost an hour before a man with a gun bulge under his suit jacket comes out of the VIP area and heads in her direction. She sees the bartender nod in her direction.

The suit looms up behind her. “Sígueme.” _Follow me._

She follows him back through the VIP section. He opens a door at the far end and gestures for her to go through. Beyond there’s an empty hallway with a staircase at the far end. If her cover’s been blown, this is where she’ll find out, before she ever gets into a room with Pesado. If she’s lucky they might not want to kill here, they might just try to grab her and take her somewhere quieter, somewhere they can dump her body.

She tightens her grip on her clutch and steps through the doorway. The suit follows, pulling the door shut behind them as two men who were lurking just out of sight step forward. They’re tall and openly armed. Definitely ex-military. Probably American, by the look of them.

They take her bag. One of them searches it while the other searches her. The one searching her does an _extremely_ thorough job, but thanks to the skimpiness of her dress there’s not much to search so it’s mercifully quick. The one searching her bag is almost as thorough. He opens her lipstick and checks the battery compartment of her phone. Ignores the money and the condom. Doesn’t find the blade hidden inside the lining.

“She’s clean,” says the shorter one in English. Definitely American.

The suit leads her down the hall, past several closed doors. Storage probably, most of them. She makes a note of the one marked _salida._ That’ll be how Pesado comes and goes. The exit she’ll be using if things go as planned.

They ascend the stairs. There are two more armed men at the top. Another hallway, more closed doors. She hears voices behind some of these, some speaking Spanish, some English. More of Pesado’s men. The corridor makes a nice neat kill box. She hopes Steve doesn’t have to fight his way through it.

At the end of the hall the suit leads her through a door and into a largish office. There are several desks, a couch. A man counting out stacks of money. Two more men playing cards. They glance up when she walks in, then go back to what they’re doing, uninterested in her. The suit walks across the room and raps on another door. He opens it without waiting for a response and gestures for Sharon to go inside.

Pesado’s sitting behind a desk, leaning back in a large leather chair, watching a boxing match on a TV across the room. He looks up as Sharon steps into the room. At a nod from him the suit closes the door, leaving them alone.

“Angelita.” Pesado rises to greet her, kissing her on both cheeks and looking her up and down. “It’s been a long time since your beautiful face has graced one of my clubs.” He addresses her in English; he’s the product of an American Ivy League education and barely even has an accent.

“Two years,” Sharon says, gazing around the room. “I liked the old club better. Electronica gives me a migraine.”

He shrugs. “It’s where the money is this year. Next year the kids will want something else.”

Pesdado sinks into his chair and leans back, regarding her. There are two chairs in front of his desk but Sharon chooses to stay standing. The music from the club below is a dull, persistent throb that seeps up through the floor.

“I have to say, I’m a little surprised to see you again,” he says coolly. “I thought maybe you’d forgotten about me. Where’ve you been?”

“Greener pastures,” she says, leaning over to examine a framed photo on his desk and giving him an eyeful of her cleavage in the process. “I made a new connection in Belize. What can I say? I like the beaches.”

“So what you brings you back to me after all this time? Your new friend doesn’t satisfy you anymore?”

She walks around and perches on the desk beside him, letting her leg brush lightly against his arm. “He’s good at what he’s good at,” she says. “But I’ve recently come into some special merchandise that I need to unload quickly, and I immediately thought of you.”

Pesado gazes up her. “Your new friend doesn’t like special merchandise?”

Sharon smiles. “It’s a little out of his wheelhouse. He’s not a visionary thinker like you.” She takes her phone out of her purse, pulls up a photo album, and passes it to Pesado.

He swipes through the photos, which are all of young girls. An FBI contact who works sex trafficking cases provided them for her. Sharon can barely even stand to look at them; Pesado studies them clinically, like he’s evaluating used cars. “I didn’t realize you’d expanded your business,” he says.

“It’s a one-time only deal. Someone’s buyer fell through, someone else suggested I might know somebody. You know how it goes.”

He hands the phone back to her. “I might be able to help you out. How much are you looking for per unit?”

“Later,” she says, waving her hand. “I’m too hungry to negotiate now. The food in my hotel isn’t fit for prisoners. Take me to dinner first, somewhere expensive. Once you’ve plied me with wine we can work out the details.”

He gestures at the TV. “I’ve got money on the fight tonight.”

_Dammit._ She should have checked the television listings. This is what happens when you rush.

She turns to look at the screen. An Argentine middleweight is facing off against an up-and-coming Ukrainian. She makes a face. “Not on Martínez, I hope.”

He bristles. “You think I would bet against the greatest boxer my country has ever seen?”

“I think he’s too old and you’re too sentimental. Look at his footwork. It’s only the first round and his knee’s already slowing him down. And he needs to raise that right hand.”

Fortuitously, the Ukrainian manages at that exact moment to drop Martínez with a power left hook. Sharon smiles sympathetically as Pesado winces.

“How much did you put on him?” she asks as a dazed-looking Martínez lurches to his feet.

Pesado scowls. “A dime.”

Moments later, a brutal body-shot puts Martínez on the canvas a second time. “It’s too painful to watch.” Sharon lays her hand on Pesado’s arm, stroking lightly. “Come on, Miguel, this fight’s as good as over, you can see it in his eyes. Take me to dinner and I’ll cover your loss.”

He glares at the television for a moment. Then he nods. “All right, you win.”

* * *

“Best steak in the city,” Pesado is saying as they step out the back exit and into the alley behind El Sitio. “Just opened last year.” The bodyguard who searched Sharon earlier opens the door of a waiting Town Car. Sharon and Pesado slide into the back seat.

“Casa Julio,” Pesado tells the driver, and the car pulls away. He turns to Sharon, smiling suggestively. “You hardly even need to chew it, it melts in your mouth like ice cream.”

“Sounds amazing,” she says, resting her hand on Pesado’s thigh. He goes on about the restaurant for another five minutes, until he happens looks out the window.

“Te pásaste el camino,” he tells the driver irritably. _You passed the street._ When the driver doesn’t answer Pesado leans forward and taps him on the shoulder. “¡Idiota! ¿Qué estás haciendo?”

“Sorry, my Spanish is pretty rusty,” Steve says from the front seat. “There’s been a slight change in plans.”

“What the hell is this?” Pesado demands. He freezes when he feels the gun Sharon’s holding against his ribcage—it was taped beneath the passenger seat, all she had to do was retrieve it as she was getting into the car. He turns slowly to fix her with a cold glare. “You fucking bitch.”

Sharon smiles sweetly. “Be a good boy, Miguel, and maybe you’ll live to taste that steak again.”

* * *

Steve drives them to an empty office park a few miles away, pulls into a dark alley between two buildings, and parks alongside the rental car he left there earlier. They duct tape Pesado’s hands, feet, and mouth, and transfer him to the trunk of the rental.

“Everything go okay?” Steve asks as Sharon slides into the passenger seat beside him.

“Piece of cake,” she says.

He drives back to the warehouse, pulls the car inside, and yanks the door down behind them. While he’s getting the lights turned on, Sharon makes a quick change out of the gold dress and into something a little more practical.

By the time she’s done lacing up her boots, Steve’s standing by the rear of the car, silently glowering at the closed trunk. She steps up beside him. He’s wound up taut as a steel spring; she can practically feel the tension radiating off of him. “You ready to do this?” she asks.

He squeezes the car keys in his hand and nods stoically. Together, they haul Pesado out of the trunk. Steve props him up against the bumper of the car and rips the duct tape off his mouth.

“I’m going to kill everyone you’ve ever loved,” Pesado spits. “Your lovers, your friends, your family. Then I’ll hunt down all your neighbors, your favorite teacher, the first girl you ever kissed, and I’ll kill them too.”

“They’re already dead,” Steve says flatly. “I’m going to ask you some questions now, and if you answer truthfully you get to go home in one piece. If you withhold information, on the other hand, or if you lie to me, things are going to get extremely unpleasant for you.”

The look on his face is chilling. Sharon’s never seen him like this. She’s read the after-action reports, she knows what he’s capable of in the field, she’s just never met Steve Rogers the stone-cold soldier in person before. It’s easy to forget that despite his inherent good nature, he’s a terrifyingly efficient killing machine.

Steve takes out his phone, pulls up a photo, and holds it in front of Pesado’s face. “You recognize this man? He’s an American scientist by the name of Douglas Hibbard.”

Pesado looks at it, but doesn’t say anything.

“First question’s a freebie,” Steve says, shoving the phone back in his pocket. “I already know you recognize him, because you helped smuggle him into the country last year, along with a shipping container full of scientific equipment. I need to know where he is now.”

Pesado stays silent.

“Tell me how to find Hibbard,” Steve says, his voice low and menacing.

Nothing.

Steve grabs Pesado by the shirtfront, throws him facedown on the floor, and rips the duct tape off his wrists. His knee presses down into Pesado’s spine, stapling him to the floor, as he wrenches Pesado’s right arm up behind his back. “Last chance,” Steve warns.

The tightly-controlled rage coming off of him goes way beyond a soldier on a mission; whatever this is, it’s clearly personal to him.

Pesado wriggles futilely, gasping for air with Steve’s weight pressing on his diaphragm, but it’s clear he’s not going to talk. Steve wraps his fist around Pesado’s pinky finger and yanks. The bone snaps with a sickening _pop._ Pesado howls in pain.

“ _How can I find Hibbard?_ ” Steve demands. He reaches for Pesado’s ring finger—

“Hey,” Sharon says. “Can we hit the pause button for a second?”

“I’ve got this,” Steve growls, tightening his grip on Pesado, “under control.”

“Clearly,” Sharon agrees. “But I’ve got a little more experience with this sort of thing, and I’m telling you there’s a better way to get this done. I’m a resource,” she adds pointedly. “Use me.”

He looks up at her, frowning. Then he releases Pesado’s arm and sits back on his haunches. “Okay, so how do _you_ want to do it?”

“Get him upright again,” Sharon instructs.

Steve hauls him up by the armpits and shoves him against the bumper of the car. Pesado glares at them resentfully, cradling his injured hand to his chest.

Sharon crouches beside him so they’re eye-to-eye. “That probably hurts, doesn’t it?” She gestures at his hand, tutting sympathetically. “You might have noticed my friend’s a little pissed off at the moment. He’d be happy to break all your fingers one-by-one and then move on to—” She cuts a glance at Steve. “What were you going to break next?”

He shrugs. “I was thinking his feet, but I hadn’t made up my mind, to be honest.”

“—probably your feet next,” Sharon says, turning back to Pesado. “The thing is, there’s like two hundred bones in the human body—”

“Two-hundred six,” Steve offers.

“Right, two-hundred six. You can see how that could take awhile, and I bore easily, so I’m going to do everyone a favor and move things along.” She leans closer, so that she’s speaking right into his ear. “You know that photo on your desk, the one I was looking at earlier? The one of your mother and father on their wedding day. So sweet. I imagine you must love your mother a lot, to buy her that nice house in Pergamino.”

Pesado goes rigid, his eyes widening slightly.

“That’s right,” Sharon goes on. “I know about the blue house with the vegetable garden in the back and the bougainvillea growing over the front porch. You bought the house under one of your aliases and you probably thought no one would be able to find her, but _I_ found her, Miguel. And I found your sister, too, the one who lives just a few kilometers away from your mother, with her husband Rodrigo and their daughter Emilia. Sweet little Emilia, she’s what? Eight now? Nine? What’s the name of that school she goes to? St. Cecilia’s. It’s generous of you to pay her tuition, I understand it’s a very good school.”

Sharon leans back, pausing long enough to let all of that sink in. “So here’s what’s going to happen,” she says, her voice going steely. “You’re going to tell us everything you know about Douglas Hibbard, or else I’m going to stuff you back in the trunk of this car and drive to Pergamino, and I’m going to kill your mother, your sister, and your niece. Look at me, Miguel,” she orders, and he reluctantly drags his eyes to meet hers. “You believe me, when I say that’s what I’m going to do, don’t you?”

“Wakefield,” Pesado hisses at her. “That’s who paid me to bring Hibbard in. I don’t know where he is now, but when he came into the country, both he and the shipping container went to Wakefield.”

“What’s Wakefield?” Steve asks, stepping closer.

“Supposed to be some kind of agricultural biotech company.” He shrugs. “I don’t know what they’re really doing out there, but they pay me to bring things in and out of the country for them sometimes.”

“What kind of things?” Sharon asks.

“Sometimes it’s people, sometimes it’s containers.” He shrugs again. “They pay me enough not to ask what’s inside.”

* * *

“Are you going to tell me who Douglas Hibbard is and why you’re looking for him?” Sharon asks. It’s not an accusation, just a question.

They’re in the rental car again, heading out to the Wakefield site after packing up the warehouse and leaving Pesado tied up in the trunk of his own Town Car back at the office park—someone will probably find him in the morning, if not sooner.

Steve taps his thumb against the steering wheel. “Hibbard worked for Alexander Pierce,” he answers after a moment. “HYDRA had a secret facility in D.C.—”

“The one that blew up.”

He glances over at her, then back at the road. “That’s the one.”

“Did you have something to do with that?”

He shakes his head. “HYDRA had already cleaned it out by the time we got there, there was nothing left.” His mouth twitches. “Someone else decided to blow it up, after we’d already been and gone.”

“The Winter Soldier?”

“ _Bucky,_ ” he says, frowning sharply. “His name is Bucky.” He spares her another glance and she nods. “That’s where HYDRA kept him,” Steve continues, “in between missions. Or one of the places, anyway. Hibbard was the lead scientist who—the things they did to Bucky, in order to keep him under their control … I saw some of their files and it’s—let’s just say it’d be inhumane treatment for a lab rat, much less a human being.”

“So, after SHIELD fell, HYDRA moved Hibbard and his lab out of the U.S. and down to their facility in Argentina?”

“That’s the working theory.”

Sharon looks down at her tablet and swipes through a few pages of the latest Wakefield annual report. “An agricultural biotech company makes a pretty good front for an evil Nazi science lab, I guess.”

Steve shifts in his seat, adjusts his grip on the wheel. “Thank you, by the way, for getting the intel out of Pesado. You were right, your way was better.”

“Torture’s an unreliable method of extracting information,” she says, scrolling down a list of Wakefield shareholders. “Psychological manipulation, on the other hand …” She shrugs. “Everyone’s got something they care about more than themselves.”

“Would you really have done it?”

She looks up at him. “What do you think?”

He shakes his head but doesn’t look at her. “I think you’re an extremely convincing liar.”

She stares out the window at the endless acres of soybean fields streaming past. “I’m exactly what SHIELD taught me to be.”

* * *

Wakefield’s Rosario office is actually most of the way to Casilda, a farming community forty-five kilometers west of the city. They park the car a mile down the highway, out of sight behind a tumble-down tractor shed, and scale a disused grain silo for a better vantage of the site.

It’s an ugly, nondescript two-story office building. From the outside it looks no different than thousands of other office buildings just like it all over the world, except for the concertina wire around the perimeter and the two uniformed men manning the guard shack with semi-automatic rifles. It’s not a huge facility, only large enough to comfortably support 200 or so personnel. They can expect at least twenty of those to be security, maybe more, depending on how valuable this site is. But given that it’s where they shipped the equipment used to control the Winter Soldier—and given that the Winter Soldier is no longer under their control—it’s probably used for back burner rather than high priority projects.

“According to their corporate records this was a research facility working on animal genetics,” Sharon says, shielding her eyes with her hand. “But that whole division was supposedly shut down two years ago.”

“That look shut down to you?” Steve asks, passing her the binoculars.

She peers through the lenses, sees a car pull up to the guard shack. A moment later the gate rises and it drives through. There are about a hundred cars in the parking lot already, and a delivery truck parked in one of the bays of the loading dock around the side.

“There are no windows on the second floor,” Sharon points out.

A muscle clenches in Steve’s jaw. “That’s where they keep their secrets.”

When they’ve done all the recon they can from a distance, they climb back down. Steve goes straight to the car and starts unpacking his shield. “I need you to take the car back to the airport,” he says in a clipped voice. “If I don’t make it back there in two hours, call Maria and give her these coordinates.”

“Like hell I will,” Sharon says, pulling her Kevlar vest out of the trunk.

He jerks his shield harness on over the t-shirt he changed into back at the warehouse. “I’m not taking you in there with me. I appreciate all your help so far, but this is something I have to do alone.”

“Steve—” She lays a hand on his arm. His hands still on the straps he was adjusting, but he won’t meet her eye. “When are you going to start trusting me?”

“It’s not that,” he says, looking at her finally. “I can’t ask you to follow me in there. If we had a full strike team or any kind of backup at all, really, I’d be glad to have you at my side, but this—” He shakes his head. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Which is exactly why you need someone watching your back. Listen, that’s HYDRA in there,” she says, her voice going hard and flat. “I’ve got my own score to settle with them, so if you want to stop me from going in, you’re going to have to tie me up and stuff me in the trunk of this car. And believe me, I will not make it easy for you.”

He looks at her for a long moment. Then he shakes his head slightly in amused exasperation. “All right, what’s the plan, Carter?”

She grins at him. “Punching through the front door sounds pretty fun.”


	9. Enemies Foreign and Domestic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone for all the amazing comments and kudos on this story so far. I honestly didn’t think anyone was going to want to read a Steve/Sharon story, so I truly appreciate all of y’all who’ve shown it some love! 
> 
> Also, in regards to Avengers: Age of Ultron (which has either just opened or is just about to open, depending on where you live), the entirety of this story is intended to take place before the events of that movie. While I was writing it, I did my best to imagine where MCU canon might go based on the information we had, and to write a story that fit into that canon, but in the end it was just a guess, so there will inevitably be things that don’t line up. This story is already completed and I won’t be attempting to go back and make it canon compliant after I see Age of Ultron, so it will undoubtedly diverge into AU at some point (if it hasn’t already).
> 
> Oh, and this week’s chapter is extra long, and features the appearance of a fan-favorite character, so I hope you enjoy it!

They end up going in via the loading bay instead of the front door, but it’s still pretty fun. There are only two security guards guarding the warehouse. Steve takes out one of them with a single blow from his shield while Sharon kicks the legs out from under the other one, grabs the baton he was wielding, and knocks him unconscious. The rest of the warehouse workers take one look at them and haul ass into the main building.

Steve starts to follow but Sharon grabs his arm. “One sec,” she says, stooping over a computer in the receiving office.

An alarm starts blaring and there’s a series of echoing crashes as the site goes into lockdown and the fire doors slam shut all over the facility. “I think they know we’re here,” Steve shouts over the din.

Sharon isn’t worried about the lockdown; it will slow their own security forces more than it will slow her and Steve. She focuses on the computer, searching for the files she needs, because even in an evil secret organization the mailroom needs to know where to deliver the packages. And there it is. She commits the layout of the building and the location of Hibbard’s lab to memory with a glance.

The door to the main building is locked, but Steve just backs up a few steps and barrels through it shield-first like it’s made of paper. Waiting for them on the other side is a phalanx of heavily-armed guards, and if there was any question about Pesado’s intel before, the HYDRA patches on their uniforms dispel all doubt.

They plow through them, Steve with his shield and Sharon with anything and everything she can lay her hands on: the baton she took off the first guard, a fire extinguisher hanging on the wall, the butts of their own guns. She’s got her Glock at her hip, but doesn’t even bother drawing. Better to save her ammunition in case things heat up later, and anyway it’s more fun to improvise.

It’s exhilarating, fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Steve like this. She can’t even remember the last time she enjoyed herself this much. The numbing fog of the last year burns away in a rush of endorphins. _This,_ she thinks. This is what it’s supposed to feel like; this is what it feels like to be alive. She’d almost let herself forget.

She finishes off the last security guard with the help of a potted ficus and looks up to find Steve watching her and—absurdly—grinning.

“What?” she says, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.

“ _Now_ you remind me of Peggy,” he says before kicking open the door to the stairwell.

The second floor looks deserted, but that’s only because the employees are all locked inside their offices and labs. Sharon can’t even let herself think too hard about what sort of abominations they’re probably cooking up behind all those doors. She hopes they’re all cowering and wetting themselves in fear right now.

“Hibbard’s lab is this way,” she says. She turns right at the first junction and left at the second, pausing every so often to let Steve punch through the fire doors for her. Finally she finds the lab number she’s been looking for, and comes to a stop in front of an open doorway—the only open room they’ve come across so far. The door has been completely torn from its hinges and tossed aside.

Steve rushes past her into the lab. She follows, a step behind. There are three bodies on the floor, lying in a spreading pool of blood—head shots, every one dead center. One of them is Douglas Hibbard. She kneels to check for a pulse, even though she knows it’s pointless.

“They’re still warm,” she says, but Steve isn’t looking at her or at the bodies. He’s crossed to the other side of the room, where someone has scrawled the word _monster_ on the wall in blood, next to some kind of large freestanding cylinder. Only it’s not really a cylinder, it looks more like a big metal sarcophagus. There’s a small window in the front, right where a face might be if there was someone inside.

Sharon’s not sure if the _monster_ is supposed to be one of the dead men on the floor, or the man they created inside that appalling device. Unsettlingly, it makes her think of the machine Howard Stark built for the SSR in 1943, the one that turned Steve Rogers into a super soldier.

Steve’s frozen, staring at it. He looks gutted, like he’s staring his worst nightmare in the face. But he also looks angry, angrier than she’s ever seen him. The fury burning in his eyes could cut through glass. Sharon steps beside him and puts a tentative hand on his arm; she can feel the muscles trembling under her fingertips.

“They kept him in there,” he says through a clenched teeth. “When they didn’t need him they shoved him in a box and froze him like a piece of old steak.”

“What do you want to do?” she asks, because the seconds are ticking away and they can’t stay here, but she’ll help him do whatever he needs to do. If he tells her he wants to raze this building to the ground and kill every last person inside she’ll find a way to make that happen or die in the attempt, because there is no punishment severe enough for the people who put this expression on Steve’s face.

He presses the palm of his hand against the glass, fingers spread, and holds it there for a moment. “We should go,” he says, turning away and scrubbing at his face. “Right now.” And then he’s grabbing her by the arm and pulling her out of the room.

“This way,” she says, when he turns to go back the way they came, because security will be following their trail and she knows another way out. But then she gets a whiff of something and puts a hand on Steve’s arm. “Do you smell gasoline?” She turns back to check their six, but there’s nothing there.

And then she feels Steve go rigid beside her, all of his attention focused on something in front of him.

She spins around and raises her sidearm. The Winter Soldier is standing twenty meters away holding an M4A1. His hair is long and straggly, hanging down in his face, but she’s seen enough pictures to recognize Bucky Barnes, even if his left arm—exposed by his cutaway leather jacket and made entirely of metal—wasn’t a dead giveaway.

“ _Don’t._ ” Steve grabs the barrel of her gun and wrenches it downward, his eyes silently pleading with her.

Barnes isn’t moving; he’s just standing there, watching them, almost disinterestedly. His rifle is pointed at the ceiling, she notes, not at them. Sharon nods carefully.

Steve lets go of her gun and turns back to Barnes. “Bucky,” he says, his voice breaking.

Barnes doesn’t move. His eyes are wide and wary, locked on Steve. They’re both frozen in place.

And then Sharon sees Barnes’ focus flick to something over her right shoulder. She hears a sound behind her and spins around, raising her gun.

Another HYDRA security squad comes into view at the far end of the corridor. Sharon fires, sending them diving for cover. She manages to take down three of them before emptying her magazine, but there’s still at least three left, maybe more, and Steve’s just _standing there_ with his back to them, all his attention still focused on Barnes. The remaining men are already regrouping and there’s no time to reload—

Sharon launches herself at Steve, aiming below his center of gravity, and it’s a sign of how distracted he is, how utterly fixated on Barnes, that she’s even able to knock him off balance. They both go tumbling sideways into Hibbard’s lab.

They land in a heap on the floor as Sharon’s chest and left shoulder explode in pain and her vision tunnels. She can’t breathe; it feels like her lungs are collapsing. She rolls off of Steve and crumples into a heap on the floor.

Distantly, she’s aware of Steve saying her name. His face swims into view, but then he touches her and another wave of agony blazes through her chest.

There’s more gunfire and she feels Steve let go of her. Her vision fades back into focus and she sees him peering around the doorway, tensed and ready to launch his shield. But apparently Barnes is exchanging fire with the HYDRA men now, providing cover.

Steve turns back to her. “Sharon—”

“’Mokay,” she manages to wheeze. “Vest—” The Kevlar absorbed the slug she took to the chest. She feels like she _wants_ to die right now, but she’ll live.

The gunfire ceases. Barnes is still standing, much closer to them than he was before. He lowers his weapon and glances over at them.

Steve stands up to face him; there’s barely five meters of space between them. “Bucky, _please._ ”

Barnes’ chin trembles slightly. He takes a step backward.

“Wait.” Steve starts to move toward him and Barnes tenses, his metal hand flexing next to the pistol holstered on his thigh. Steve freezes, putting up his hands up in a placating gesture.

Barnes starts backing away again, his eyes never leaving Steve’s. When he’s even with the next junction in the corridor he stops. His hand moves slowly to a pouch in his belt and extracts a small metal object.

It’s a Zippo lighter, Sharon realizes in dawning horror. _For the gasoline._

Barnes flips the lighter open and a small flame sparks to life. He looks almost regretful—

“Run,” he tells Steve, and tosses the lighter onto the floor.

Steve dives for Sharon and hauls her off the floor as a wall of flame erupts between them and Barnes with a loud _whoomp._ It fills up the entire width of the hall, masking Barnes from view as Steve drags her down the corridor in the opposite direction. A fire alarm starts ringing on top of the security klaxon that’s already blaring. Steve’s got his arm around her, supporting her and hurrying her along at the same time, and she’s pretty sure she’s got some broken ribs because she can’t seem to get enough air in her lungs around the pain.

Right as they draw even with the bodies of the HYDRA security force there’s a roaring sound behind them as the fire apparently finds something flammable to feed on; Sharon feels the heat flare on her back as she and Steve scramble around the corner.

At the stairwell they run into another cluster of HYDRA security; Steve lets go of her and plunges into the middle of them, his shield flying so fast it’s difficult to track. Sharon takes the opportunity to load a fresh magazine into her Glock and manages to pick off two of them for him.

They struggle onward. Sharon’s feeling a little steadier on her feet so she doesn’t need to lean on Steve as much, but he stays glued to her side in case she falters. Just as they burst out the front door and into the sunlight the building’s rocked by another explosion on the far side, followed almost immediately by another and then another after that, a whole series of explosions moving through the facility in tandem.

They propel themselves forward in a desperate sprint to put as much distance between themselves and the conflagration as possible. A billowing dust cloud overtakes them as the Wakefield building collapses in a smoldering pile of rubble. As soon as they’re clear of it Sharon stumbles to a halt, her aching ribcage heaving painfully from the exertion.

“Charges,” Steve pants. “He had the building wired.”

Sharon bends over, her right arm braced on her knee and her left pressed to her abdomen, desperately trying to catch her breath.

“You okay?” Steve asks.

“I’m fine,” she manages. “Don’t worry about me, you go after Barnes.”

Steve shakes his head.

She forces herself upright, wincing in pain. “He’s _here,_ ” she persists. “He’s still got to be close by; you can find him.”

“I spent the better part of a year chasing after him,” Steve says grimly. “Believe me, he’ll be long gone by now. He doesn’t want to be found. Here,” he says, coming over to her, “let me take a look.”

“It’s nothing.” She waves him away. “Just a bruise.”

But Steve’s already unfastening her body armor—which has an impressive-looking divot in it from the round it absorbed—and evaluating her injuries. “Where’s this blood coming from?” he asks, alarmed, when he discovers her black shirt has been camouflaging a dark stain spreading down her left arm.

“One of them clipped me, it’s fine,” she says, but her sleeve is soaked through with blood, and most of her left side.

Steve takes out his pocket knife to cut the fabric away so he can get a better look. “Just a bruise,” he echos accusingly when he uncovers the bullet wound in her left shoulder.

It’s not bad, though. The bullet tore a chunk of flesh out of her deltoid on its way through, but it missed the bone, so she should be good. It’s bleeding a lot, though, making it look worse than it is. Steve wraps the sleeve he cut off around her shoulder as a make-shift bandage and ties it tight enough to make her gasp, which sends another spasm of pain shooting through her chest.

“Can you make it back to the car?” he asks skeptically.

“Yep, I’m good,” she says, and starts walking, determined not to show how much pain she’s in. As long as she doesn’t try to go too fast, it’s not so bad. All she has to do is breath slowly and shallowly, and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Steve trails behind and doesn’t try to talk to her, which is good because there’s no way she can manage talking and breathing at the same time right now.

By the time they finally finish the one-mile trek to the car, Sharon’s drained and shaky. She collapses into the passenger seat and it’s heaven, it’s amazing to just to be sitting down somewhere soft and safe for a few minutes.

Steve doesn’t say anything, just gets behind the wheel and starts the car, and she’s so grateful, because she doesn’t have enough energy to answer queries about how she’s doing or try to pretend like she’s not feeling crushed. She curls up in the seat with her head resting against the window and closes her eyes.

* * *

It feels like only seconds later that Steve’s nudging her awake. “Hey,” he says softly, “you still with me?”

She groans and sits up slowly. They’re at the airport, parked outside the FBO terminal where they left the Stark jet hangared.

“Drink this,” Steve says, putting a bottle in her hand.

“Please tell me that’s tequila,” she mutters.

He smiles faintly. “No such luck. You’re dehydrated from the blood loss, you need to rehydrate.” He waits until she’s gulped down enough water to satisfy him, then takes the water bottle from her. “You better cover up,” he says, holding out the light cotton jacket he was wearing on the flight down.

She lets him help her into the jacket to hide her bloody makeshift bandage. The jacket smells like him, and she has to resist the urge to pull it tight around her and bury her face in it. He gets out and starts hauling their bags out of the car; he must have called ahead because a concierge is already coming toward them with a luggage cart. Once the luggage and the rental car keys have all been commended to the care of the concierge, Steve comes around to hand her out of the car.

They go straight through the terminal and out onto the tarmac where the Gulfstream’s already fired up and waiting for them. The stairs up to the plane are daunting, but Steve puts his arm around her waist and walks alongside her, and if she wasn’t in so much pain it might be hard to have him this close but it’s actually pretty easy not to think about it when she’s concentrating so hard on getting herself up the stairs.

He helps her into the main cabin and guides her onto the couch, issuing instructions for the pilot to get them in the air as soon as possible, and for the hovering flight attendant to bring the emergency medical kit. “And all the scotch on the plane,” Sharon calls after her weakly.

Steve helps Sharon out of his jacket and gingerly unties the bandage on her shoulder as the plane shudders into motion. The wound is messy, but the bleeding seems to have mostly stopped. The flight attendant drops off the medical kit, along with a warning to buckle up and a handful of tiny bottles of Dewars, which Steve cruelly pushes out of reach before Sharon can snag one.

“Alcohol’s an anticoagulant,” he says with a schoolmarmish glare.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re no fun at all?” Sharon grumbles.

“All the time,” he says, and buckles her seatbelt for her.

A few minutes later they’re taxiing onto the runway and a few minutes after that they’re in the air. As soon as the plane levels off Steve unbuckles his belt and digs through the medical kit until he comes up with a pair of scissors. “I need to check your ribs,” he says apologetically.

Sharon nods her permission and he cuts what’s left of her shirt off, exposing an impressive-looking contusion blooming across her chest and disappearing beneath her bra. He presses his fingertips to her breastbone and she stiffens in spite of herself. “Does that hurt?” he asks, concerned.

She shakes her head. His hands start to move over her skin, carefully prodding and exploring her ribcage, and she tries to think about old chewing gum, and garden slugs, and dog poop on the bottom of your shoe, of something—anything—other than the way his touch makes her feel—until he finds her injured rib and it’s not a problem anymore because all she can think about is how goddamn much it _hurts._

“Sorry,” he says off her hiss of pain. “You’ve got a fracture, but it’s not too bad.” He hands her one of the scotch bottles and a packet of analgesics as a consolation prize. “You can have one now and one when I’m done suturing that gunshot wound.”

“I take back what I said about you being no fun,” she says, and downs the pills with the scotch. She could really use about three more of those stupidly tiny bottles, and she spends several minutes calculating the odds of making a successful dive for them while Nurse Ratched flushes her wound with saline. The odds, she concludes reluctantly, are decidedly not in her favor.

“Did you know Barnes would be there?” she asks while he’s getting out the suture kit.

“Not exactly.” Steve holds up a suture needle clamped in a hemostat. “Ready?” She nods, and then grits her teeth as the needle pierces her skin. “I had a hunch he might follow us,” he says, frowning in concentration as he guides the needle through. “He does that sometimes.”

“He’s been following you?” she asks. “For how long?” She watches, impressed, as he makes a very respectable surgeon’s knot. He’s surprisingly gentle, and surprisingly competent. Clearly he’s done this before.

“I’m not sure exactly. Since I quit looking for him, maybe.” He finishes the first knot and snips off the excess thread. “It’s kind of funny, I guess: I spent months following his trail, and now he’s the one following mine.”

Sharon doesn’t think it’s funny at all. Steve doesn’t really look like he does, either. “Did he follow you to Peggy’s funeral?”

His brow knits. “I don’t know.”

“Have you ever talked to him?”

He shakes his head and starts on the next suture. “Today was the closest he’s let me get in …” He frowns. “Usually it’s just glimpses at a distance. He always manages to disappear before I can get close.”

“You could have gone after him today. You could have tried.”

“As soon as I start chasing him, he starts running away. It’s better to let him come to me, I think.”

“Like a skittish dog,” Sharon says, without thinking. He looks up at her. “I’m sorry,” she adds quickly, “I didn’t mean to compare him to an animal.”

“No, you’re right,” he says, going back to the knot he was tying. “That’s how he was treated, like an animal. That was all he knew for so long, I don’t think he remembers how to be anything else anymore. I think that’s why he stays away.”

“Maybe it’s coming back to him,” she says, and he looks up at her again. “The way he looked at you today—he didn’t look like an animal to me, he looked like a man in pain.”

Steve’s expression shutters and he changes the subject: “You didn’t have that scar on your arm before,” he says with a nod at her forearm, “when you lived in my building.”

She scowls. “It was a present from your pal Rumlow, the day the Triskelion fell. After you made your announcement over the PA system.”

“You were there that day,” he says, like it hadn’t occurred to him before.

“Some of us tried to stop the Insight launch.” She looks away, unable to say the next part out loud. That they failed. That _she_ failed. She was _right there,_ she had the chance to prevent all that death and destruction, and she blew it.

“Hey,” he says, and she doesn’t want to look at him but she does, because she’s weak and he’s got too much power over her. “It means a lot that you tried,” he tells her, serious and tender and a little sad—always a little sad. “I wasn’t sure anyone would.”

“Well, it was a pretty good speech,” she quips, trying to sound light but it comes out brittle instead. The way he’s looking at her with those clear blue eyes of his—it’s like he can see right through her, right down to the bottom her soul where she’s tried to hide all the pain and longing and the ugly, messy parts of herself that she doesn’t want him to know about. “You almost done there?” she asks, looking away.

“This is the last one.”

After he’s done with her sutures he digs a zippered hoodie out of her suitcase and helps her into it. Then he insists she try to eat something. The flight attendant brings out two plates of grilled salmon with tomato carpaccio. Sharon manages to eat all of four bites before she falls asleep in her chair.

When she startles awakes some time later the cabin lights are dimmed and Steve’s dozing in the chair across from her. He looks boyish and vulnerable with all his waking cares smoothed away, like all the steel beneath the surface has leeched out of him. For the first time, she can imagine him as the fragile ninety-pound weakling he used to be.

Sharon curls up in her seat and drifts back to sleep.

* * *

Maria Hill is waiting for them when they disembark at Dulles. There’s a man with her, standing to her side and a little behind: thick blond hair, tortoise-shell glasses, a slim-fitting suit. He looks like he just stepped out of a Dolce & Gabbana ad.

“Welcome back,” Hill says as they make their way slowly down the stairs. “Sounds like you two had fun.”

“So much fun,” Sharon mutters as Steve helps her down the last few steps.

“You up for a debrief, Steve?” Hill asks. “I’d like to get it done as soon as possible.”

“Sharon needs someone to drive her home,” he points out, looking torn.

“This is my assistant, Wyatt,” Hill says, gesturing to the man beside her, and Sharon has to resist the urge to congratulate her on her excellent taste in male assistants. “He can drive her home and make sure she has everything she needs.” She cocks an eyebrow at Sharon. “Assuming that’s acceptable to you, Sharon?”

“Sounds great,” Sharon replies, trying not to let herself be disappointed that it’s not Steve driving her home instead. Hill’s right, the debrief is important. And hey, she gets the lovely Wyatt as a consolation prize.

Wyatt steps forward and offers his arm. “Shall, we, Agent Carter?”

“I’ll call you later,” Steve promises as Sharon lets Wyatt lead her away.

* * *

Wyatt turns out to be more than just a pretty face; he is also _extremely_ efficient. Not only does he drive Sharon home in her own car and unpack her luggage for her, but he puts on a load of laundry and goes out for groceries and pain medicine. By the time he finally calls a cab to take him back to wherever he came from, her refrigerator is stocked, there’s a pot of soup warming on the stove, and she’s got a week’s supply of Vicodin and clean clothes. Sharon would really like to acquire a Wyatt of her own.

Steve calls that evening, just like he said he would. “I woke you,” he says apologetically when she answers.

“Mm mm,” she says, feeling muzzy and indistinct. “I was watching TV.” Technically she may have been dozing in front of the TV, but there’s no reason to tell him that.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better. Wyatt got me some good pharmaceuticals.”

“Ahh, that explains why you sound so …”

“What?”

“Relaxed.” His voice is warm and amused, and the sound of it does funny things to her stomach.

“I’m a relaxed person,” she mumbles, and scrubs at her eyes, trying to get some of the fog in her brain to clear before she says something really stupid.

  
He laughs. “Sure you are. Listen,” he says, suddenly serious, “I wanted to say thank you. And also I’m sorry. I froze up out there and you got hurt. It shouldn’t have happened.”

“It could have happened to anyone under the circumstances. That’s why you need someone to watch your back for you.”

“I guess I do,” he admits. “Anyway, thank you for saving my ass. I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me. I violated your privacy for six months. If anything, I’ve still got some making up to do.”

“I don’t see it that way,” he says, unexpectedly earnest and just a little reproachful.

“Well anyway,” she says, before things start to get too real. “Don’t worry about it. I had fun.”

“Right,” he says wryly.

“No, really. I mean obviously not the part where I got shot, but I liked being with you—” _Oh god, no._ “I mean _working_ with you,” she amends, and she really needs to shut the fuck up. “It was nice,” she finishes lamely. Damn this Vicodin.

“I liked it too.” His voice has gone all warm again, like he actually means it. “We make a good team.”

Her heart stutters in her chest. She should probably say something—he’s probably waiting for her to say something—but her muddled brain can’t seem to remember how to make words anymore.

“I better let you go,” he says after a moment. “Take care.”

“You too,” she manages before he hangs up.

Sharon picks up a pillow from the couch and tries to smother herself with it.

* * *

She takes two personal days to heal before returning to work. No one asks about her special assignment or the fact that she’s moving stiffly. A few weeks later, Tolman calls her into his office and gives her a meaty new assignment. It’s a real op, targeting an arms dealer believed to be supplying a HYDRA cell operating in Tunis, and she’s going to be the lead. She’s pretty sure she knows who she has to thank for it.

Before she leaves for Tunisia, Sharon has a dozen gluten-free red velvet cupcakes delivered to Maria Hill’s office at Stark Industries.

* * *

Tunis is cool and rainy. Sharon’s there three weeks and barely sees the sun at all—although some of that has to do with the fact that she’s mostly working nights. The op itself is a stunning success. The arms dealer gives them the HYDRA cell, and the HYDRA cell gives them a mountain of useful intel and a large cache of weapons. It’s a huge win for her.

On her way out of the country she picks out a postcard to send to Natasha. On impulse she buys two. Natasha’s she leaves blank, but on the second one, which she addresses to Steve, she writes _Wish you were here_ with a smiley face next to it.

Sharon hates herself a little, but she drops it in the mail before she can change her mind.

* * *

A week later she gets a text from Steve:

_Nice work in Tunis. Thanks for the postcard. :)_

 


	10. Internal Displacement

It’s almost 2 a.m. on a Friday night when Sharon’s phone starts ringing. Groaning, she rolls over in bed and grabs it off the nightstand—as soon as she reads the name on the display she bolts upright.

“Steve?” She hasn’t heard from him in over a month, and she can’t think of a single good reason he’d be calling her this time of night.

“I’m sorry to do this,” he grunts, sounding out of breath, “but I need a ride.” His voice is muffled and distant beneath some kind of scuffling sound.

“Where are you?” she asks, already pulling on her clothes.

The address he gives her is in Baltimore. Over an hour away.

“I’ll be there in forty-five minutes,” she promises him.

“Come in by the door on the south side of the building,” he tells her. There’s a shout and then a loud crash. “Hurry,” he adds before the line goes dead.

* * *

The address Steve gave her turns out to be a low-rent office building in an industrial area of Southeast Baltimore. There’s a cold, damp wind blowing off the waterfront, smelling faintly of sulphur, and no signs of life in the immediate vicinity: no cars on the road, no people anywhere in sight, no lights on inside the building or out. Fortunately, the moon overhead is full enough to light Sharon’s way as she edges around the building with her gun drawn. A train rumbles in the distance. A dog barks a few blocks away. Otherwise there’s only silence.

When she reaches the south side of the building she finds a pool of blood on the ground. There are smeary drag marks leading from the blood pool to the door Steve directed her to. The lock’s been smashed. She raises her Glock and yanks the door open.

It leads into a stairwell. The moonlight spilling in through the open door illuminates four bodies on the floor, wearing nondescript black fatigues with no insignia or identification. Two of them clearly died of head trauma. One has a broken neck. The fourth is too much of a bloody mess to narrow the cause of death to just one injury. Otherwise, the stairwell appears empty.

There are more bloody drag marks leading to another door on the far wall. Sharon steps inside the stairwell and pulls the door closed behind her. The transom window lets in just enough light for her to pick her way around the bodies to the far door. She cautiously pulls it open, just wide enough to peer through. It’s pitch black in the building beyond.

“Steve?” she whispers, reaching for the flashlight on her belt.

“Here,” he answers, and she lets out the breath she was holding.

She switches on the flashlight and steps through. Steve is at the end of the corridor, crouched on the floor beside another body. He’s holding his shield in a defensive posture but he relaxes a little when she lowers the flashlight so he can see her. He’s not in uniform, and his clothes are covered with dark stains. Sharon holsters her weapon and hurries forward.

“We have to get him out of here,” he says, looking down at the body next to him.

She follows his gaze to the man on the floor—and _oh fuck,_ it’s Barnes. She didn’t recognize him at first, because instead of the black leather he was sporting in Argentina he’s wearing an old green Army field jacket that mostly covers his metal arm. He’s got a head wound and—it’s bad. It’s _really_ bad. There’s a lot of blood; it’s matted in his hair and pooling underneath him, but it’s not just his head, the front of his shirt is soaked with it, too.

She presses her fingers to his throat, searching for a pulse—it’s there, but just barely.

“We need to move him,” Steve says.

Steve’s skin is bone white in the dim light of the flashlight and his eyes are glassy and unfocused. Sharon reaches for his bloody shirt, feeling for injuries. “Is any of this your blood?”

“He fell,” Steve mumbles, still staring at Barnes. “He was on the roof and they were chasing him. I tried to get to him—he was grappling with one of them near the edge and another one shot him before I could get there, and they both fell. I was too late to stop it.”

“ _Steve,_ ” she says sharply, giving him a shake to drag him back to the here-and-now. “Is any of this your blood?”

He looks at her and shakes his head. “I’m fine, I’m okay.”

She looks down at Barnes again. She hates to move him in this condition, but calling an ambulance with all these bodies lying around is a no-go and Steve’s already moved him once anyway. She goes around to Barnes’ other side and takes hold of his non-metal arm. “Let’s get him up and out to my car.”

Together they lever Barnes off the floor and carry him out of the building suspended between them. He’s _heavy,_ but Steve’s shouldering most of the weight; Sharon’s mostly there for balance and to handle the doors. Miraculously, they get all the way out to the car without being seen, and manage to lay Barnes out across the back seat of her Charger.

Sharon gets a blanket out of the trunk and drapes it over him. Her fingers find his pulse point again, half-expecting the trip to the car to have finished him off, but against all odds she feels the same faint flutter of life under her fingertips. He’s still hanging on—just barely, but he’s alive.

Steve’s watching her, his face a mask of anxiety and despair, and she gives him an encouraging nod. Her hands are sticky with Barnes’ blood and they leave bloody smudges on the door handle when she gets behind the wheel. She scrubs her palms futilely on her jeans. She’s covered with Barnes’ blood; it’s soaking into her clothes and coating her hair. The sweet, salty tang of it is in her nose and making the air in the car feel thick and stifling.

Steve slides into the passenger seat and she starts the engine. “Find me the nearest hospital,” she says, thrusting her phone at him as she tears away from the curb.

“We can’t take him to a hospital,” he says flatly.

“Are you kidding me right now?” She takes a corner and accelerates, putting as much distance as she can between them and the bodies in that stairwell.

“As soon as they get a look at his arm—”

“We can worry about that _later,_ ” she shoots back. She gets on the expressway heading towards downtown because she has a vague idea that Johns Hopkins is in that general direction.

“They’re looking for him. They’ll find him if we take him to a hospital.”

“We’ll protect him, we can make sure HYDRA doesn’t get him back.”

“ _They weren’t HYDRA, they were ours,_ ” he says with a new kind of edge to his voice.

She cuts a look at him as she changes lanes. “What?”

“The government has been trying to capture him for months. I don’t know who those men worked for exactly—Homeland Security, CIA, military—but they weren’t HYDRA.”

“ _Dammit,_ ” she breathes, because this changes everything. They looked like private military contractors, which means they could have been sent by any one of a dozen agencies within the U.S. Intelligence Community. Which means the situation is much worse than she thought.

“We have to hide him.” Steve twists around in his seat to gaze at Barnes. “We can’t let them capture him.”

“Do you even understand what you’re saying?” she asks helplessly.

“ _They’ll put him in a cage,_ ” he shoots back, his voice nearly breaking. “I can’t let them do that to him again. I can’t.”

She scrubs a hand over her face. She’s seen an injury like Barnes’ once before. In San Francisco, eight years ago, one of their targets tried to run, there was a high-speed chase, and he ended up crashing into another car. The guy wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. He went sailing through the windshield at forty miles an hour and bounced off a cinderblock wall. He’d had a pulse, too, when Sharon rolled up on him, but it was just a technicality by that point.

“Steve,” she says, as gently as she can. “He’s dying.”

He swings his gaze back to her, stone-faced. “He’s _not._ They did something to him, to make him like me. He can heal on his own, he just needs time.”

“Do you know that for a fact or are you just guessing? Because if you’re wrong—”

“I’m not wrong.”

She can usually tell when he’s lying to her, but what she can’t tell is whether he’s lying to himself. It’s hard for her to imagine anyone coming back from an injury like that. For all she knows Barnes has already slipped away in the back seat, and they’re having this argument over a corpse.

“He’s still breathing,” Steve says, as if he can read her mind. “I can see his chest moving up and down.”

“Fine.” She grabs her phone out of his hand.

“Who are you calling?” he asks, alarmed.

“Natasha.”

“I don’t think—”

“We need her,” Sharon insists. “This is too big for us to handle alone, okay?”

He hesitates, and then nods.

“What’s wrong?” Nat says as soon as she picks up. Because there’s no way Sharon would be calling at this hour unless something was wrong.

“I need your help,” Sharon tells her, accelerating around a tanker trailer.

“I’m in Zagreb.”

Sharon swears silently. “Then I need advice. Can we talk freely?”

“Hang on.” There’s a rustling sound, followed by a few moments of silence. “Okay, go,” Natasha says, coming back on the line.

Sharon hits speaker so Steve can listen in. “Bucky Barnes is unconscious in the backseat of my car with massive head trauma,” she says in a flat voice. “Steve says we can’t take him to a hospital because the U.S. security apparatus is gunning for him.”

“Steve’s right,” Natasha agrees.

Sharon huffs in frustration. “Okay, fine, but—”

“I’m thinking,” Natasha says tersely. “Maybe Sam—”

“No,” Steve breaks in. “Sam’s risked enough. I’m not dragging him into this, too,” he says, cutting a guilty look at Sharon.

“What about Stark?” Sharon suggests. “If anyone’s got the resources to protect Barnes, it’s him. No government agency is gonna want to storm Avengers Tower.”

Natasha and Steve fall abruptly silent. Then Nat says, quietly: “Steve?”

He looks pained. “You know what that’s asking of him?”

“I do,” Natasha replies very seriously.

“I can’t do that to him,” Steve says.

“I’m not sure you have a choice,” Natasha points out.

Clearly, there is an element to this situation that Sharon does not appreciate, but she does not have space to care about that right now. “I can’t drive around Baltimore forever with Barnes bleeding all over the back of my car,” she reminds them. “Someone tell me where I’m going.”

“Okay,” Steve concedes reluctantly. “We’ll go to Stark.”

“I think it’s the right call,” Natasha says. “He’ll understand.”

“You sure about that?” Steve asks.

“No,” she admits. “But Bruce definitely will. And I’ll be there in twelve hours to back you up. In the meantime, Rogers, do whatever Sharon tells you to do.”

Sharon disconnects the call and drops her phone into the console. The exit for I-95 N to New York is only two miles ahead. “You want to tell me what that was about?” she asks Steve. “If there’s some reason we can’t trust Stark—”

“I trust Tony with my life,” Steve says firmly. “Bucky’s is a different matter.”

“Why?”

His jaw clenches. “Because the Winter Soldier killed Tony’s parents.”

“Well shit,” Sharon says sympathetically.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees.

“Does Stark know that?”

“We’ve never talked about it, but the information’s out there if he goes looking for it.”

“So we should probably assume he knows.”

Steve stares out the window as they speed toward Manhattan. “Probably.”

* * *

Steve doesn’t call Tony Stark to let him know they’re coming until they’re twenty minutes out. And then he doesn’t explain _who_ exactly he’s bringing with him. He only tells him that it’s a friend in need of protection and first aid. From what Sharon can gather from Steve’s side of the conversation, Stark is happy to help. She actually feels bad for the guy.

Steve directs her through the streets of Manhattan as the first rays of dawn break over the East River. The entrance to the private parking garage beneath Avengers Tower is discreet and unassuming. A voiceprint identification system opens a formidable-looking steel gate at Steve’s command, and Sharon follows a spiraling ramp down into a parking area populated with an ostentatious display of luxury vehicles. She pulls into an open space near the elevator and jumps out of the car.

Her fingers fumble at Barnes’ throat again as she leans into the backseat. Not only does she find a pulse, but she’d almost swear it feels a little stronger. Maybe Steve’s right about Barnes. She’s not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing at this point.

They maneuver Barnes out of the car together. Once Steve has a good grip on him, with Barnes’ good arm slung around his shoulders, Sharon drapes the blanket over him, hiding his face and that damn metal arm that might as well be a flashing neon sign that says: _I’m a notorious assassin, ask me how many people I’ve murdered._

As soon as he’s covered up they hustle him onto the elevator and another voice command from Steve sends it speeding up to one of the private penthouse floors at the very top of the tower. Tony Stark is waiting for them when they step off the elevator.

“ _Christ,_ ” he says, eyes widening as he takes in the blood stains on their clothes. He’s barefoot, dressed in sweatpants and a faded t-shirt, and he looks a lot smaller in person than he does on TV. “You said the guy needed first aid, not a trauma surgeon.”

“It looks worse than it is,” Steve grits out as they hustle Barnes past Stark and down a wide hall lined with doors. He stops at the second one on the left and fumbles in his pocket.

“JARVIS, open Rogers’ front door,” Stark orders, and the door smoothly clicks open on its own.

 _Neat trick,_ Sharon thinks, as they haul Barnes into Steve’s apartment, through a stylishly mid-century modern living room, and into a bedroom—Steve’s bedroom, clearly, from the personal objects displayed around the room. An old framed photo of Peggy sits on the dresser, next to a group shot of the Howling Commandos, and Steve’s WWII uniform is hanging neatly on a valet next to the closet. Sharon tries not to look at it as they lay Barnes out on the bed.

Now that she can see him in the light, he looks like death. His face is one big bruise, his skin almost translucent. There’s dried blood flecked around his mouth and caked in his hair. And the head wound is even more gruesome now that there’s enough light to get a good look at it.

Stark trails them into the room. “Banner’s on his way with the med kit, but—” He freezes when he sees Barnes lying on the bed with his face and his metal hand exposed. Stark’s face contorts. “No way,” he says under his breath.

Steve ignores him. “Help me get his jacket off of him,” he tells Sharon.

They wrestle the Army jacket off and cut away the shirt underneath, exposing a grisly pattern of scars where the prosthetic arm was grafted onto muscle and skin. Sharon cuts a look at Steve, wondering if this is the first time he’s seen it, but his attention is focused on Barnes’ fresh wounds. There’s a hole where a bullet has torn through his abdomen, and a larger, star-shaped exit wound in his back. The smaller entry wound seems to have mostly clotted on its own, but the larger wound is still bleeding freely.

“No way,” Stark repeats, louder this time. “No way did you just bring the monster who killed my parents into _my home,_ ” he says, his voice growing progressively harsher with each syllable.

On television, Tony Stark has always struck Sharon as drolly charming—also egotistical and vaguely smarmy, but charming nonetheless. There is absolutely nothing charming or droll about his manner right now. He looks like he’s to launch himself at Steve and wrap his hands around his throat. Sharon tenses, ready to put Stark on the floor if he tries it.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says quietly. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“How about _anywhere else in the entire goddamn world?_ ” Stark shouts.

“Um,” interrupts a rumpled man by the door. “Did I miss something?” Bruce Banner, Sharon guesses, based on the medical supplies he’s holding. He’s barefoot like Stark, and he’s got a case of bedhead to go with the pajama pants and white undershirt he’s wearing.

“Go on, _Steve,_ ” Stark says acidly. “Tell Bruce what he missed. Tell him how you brought the man who murdered my parents here and asked me to give him sanctuary.”

“Well this is awkward,” Banner says, setting the medical bag on the dresser.

Steve takes a step toward Stark, palms out, imploring. “It wasn’t his fault, Tony. They brainwashed him to turn him into their weapon, but that’s not who he is. He never had a choice.”

“He’s a war criminal,” Stark says, unmoved.

“He’s a prisoner of war,” Steve counters.

“He belongs in a prison,” Stark says, advancing on Steve. “He belongs at the bottom of a hole. He deserves to be buried so deep underground no one will ever hear his screams.”

Steve flinches, but he doesn’t back down. “If the government gets their hands on him, they’ll try to turn him to their own purposes. They’ll use him, just like HYDRA did.”

“He’s right about that,” Banner offers. He’s wandered over to the bed for a better look at Barnes.

There’s a a tense silence, and Sharon finally speaks up. “This whole conversation is moot if he bleeds to death,” she points out. “Maybe we could at least get him patched up before we decide what we’re going to do with him?”

“Or we could do nothing and let him die,” Stark says coldly. “I’d be absolutely fine with that, actually”.

“ _Tony,_ ” Banner says, almost, but not quite, raising his voice.

Stark stares at Banner, and for a moment he doesn’t look angry, he looks wounded, like he’s just been betrayed by his best friend—two of his best friends, actually. “Right,” he says, low and bitter. “You do whatever think you need to do, I guess.” He shoots a baleful look at Steve. “If he lives through the next twenty-four hours, you and I are having a conversation.” And then he stalks out of the room.

“I need to get his wounds cleaned and bandaged,” Steve says stonily, going to the medical kit. He rummages around, pulling out alcohol and tape and gauze, but his movements are halting and clumsy; he’s clearly rattled and struggling to maintain his composure.

Sharon goes to stand beside him. “Why don’t you let me do it?” she says, reaching for the roll of gauze in his hand.

“I can do it,” he says, stubbornly refusing to release the gauze.

“Steve your hands are shaking. Let me.”

He looks down and sees that she’s right. His shoulders sag and he let her take the gauze from him.

“Bring it all over here,” Banner says with a sigh. “ _I’ll_ do it.”

Sharon carries the medical supplies over to the bed. Banner grabs a pair of latex gloves and stoops to peer at Barnes’ head wound. “You understand I’m not a _medical_ doctor,” he says, frowning. “Your friend needs a surgeon.” He looks up at Steve. “You’re clear what you’re risking by not taking him to the hospital?”

“He can heal,” Steve says. “Like me.”

Banner doesn’t even look surprised, he just shrugs. “Then I need a razor so we can get this head wound cleaned out.”

Steve goes to get it, leaving Sharon and Banner alone. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” Banner says, his attention on the wound in Barnes’ abdomen.

“Sharon Carter.”

“Bruce Banner,” he says, with a quick glance in her direction. He has a gentle manner, but the eyes he turns on Sharon are dark and distrustful. “You’re a friend of Steve’s, I take it?”

She nods. “I used to work for SHIELD, with Steve and Natasha.” She knows Banner and Natasha are friendly, and she wants him to trust her.

Banner smiles thinly. “I’ll try not to hold that against you. Do you have any medical training?”

“Emergency field medicine and advanced first aid.”

“You can assist me, then. Better go wash up first.”

In the hall she runs into Steve, carrying electric clippers and shaving cream and disposable razors, and he points her to the bathroom. It’s palatial and ultra-modern and fastidiously clean—so basically the exact opposite of Sharon’s in every possible way. She turns on the tap and looks at herself in the mirror. There’s a smear of Barnes’ blood on her chin and more of it dried in her hair. She washes her face with hand soap that smells like a very expensive redwood forest, finger-combs as much of the blood out of her hair as she can, and then scrubs her hands clean with Steve’s fingernail brush.

When she gets back to the bedroom Steve is helping to hold Barnes’ head while Banner shaves off the blood-matted hair around his wound. They’ve got him propped on his side, and there’s a thick stack of surgical pads under his head and his torso, and a tube running from his good arm to an IV bag hanging from the headboard. “You think you can irrigate that abdominal wound?” Banner asks with a glance in her direction.

She nods, pulling on a pair of latex gloves.

“So,” Banner says conversationally, as he scrapes the razor over Barnes’ scalp with a steady, skilled hand. “One of you want to tell me why you thought it’d be a good idea to bring this guy here?”

Steve doesn’t say anything.

“Go on,” Sharon urges him as she fills a syringe with sterile saline. “Tell him.” Because Natasha said Banner would understand. Because if anyone _can_ understand, it’s Bruce Banner, who knows what it means to be made into a monster, to be hunted by a government that wants to use you as a weapon.

Steve starts talking, reluctantly at first, but picking up steam as he goes along. It takes about ten minutes for him to spill the whole story, starting when he and Barnes were kids during the Depression, and ending with the fall from the office building a few hours ago. By the time he’s done, Sharon’s finished irrigating Barnes’ gunshot wound and Banner’s hunched over Barnes’ now-bald head with a pair of tweezers, picking gravel out of his skull.

“That exit wound needs to be packed with a wet dressing,” Banner says, his expression carefully neutral.

Sharon nods and reaches for the packing gauze.

“Let me ask you something,” Banner says, glancing at Steve. “What are the odds that your friend here is going to try and kill all of us when he wakes up?”

Sharon tenses, because she’s been wondering the same thing ever since she admitted the possibility that Barnes might not actually die after all.

Steve’s gaze is fixed on Barnes’ face. For a moment he doesn’t react. “I don’t know,” he says finally. He looks deeply unhappy.

“So the odds aren’t zero, then?” Banner says.

“No,” Steve admits. “They’re not.”

Banner picks up a roll of gauze and starts wrapping it around Barnes’ head. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

“He’s been getting better, I think—remembering more. Or at least he was. After this … I don’t know.”

“I hate to even suggest this,” Banner says, scowling like the words are actually distasteful to him, “but should we consider restraints?”

Steve hesitates. “I think that might make it worse.”

“That’s sort of what I thought, but I figured I should ask.” Banner leans over for a better look at the dressing Sharon’s working on and nods approvingly. “That looks good.” He straightens and pulls off his gloves. “I’ve done everything I can do for now, but I’ll come back in a few hours to check on him.”

“Thank you,” Steve says solemnly.

As Banner walks past Steve he reaches out stiffly and gives his shoulder a quick squeeze, like someone who wants to be consoling but is fundamentally uncomfortable with physical affection. “I hope you’re right about him. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I better go make sure Tony hasn’t self-destructed.”

Sharon finishes up with her dressing and tosses her own gloves into the trash can, which is now overflowing with bloody gauze and soiled surgical pads. Steve’s standing on the other side of Barnes, gazing down at him like he’s afraid to take his eyes off of him.

“He looks more like himself without all that hair,” he says sadly. “You can see his eyes again.”

Barnes does look slightly less menacing without the mop of stringy black hair hanging down in his face, Sharon supposes. She wanders over to the dresser and picks up the photo of the Howling Commandos. There’s Barnes, right in the middle, next to Steve; Steve’s got his arm slung around his shoulders and they’re both grinning wide, caught in the middle of a laugh. She carries the photo over and sets it on the nightstand beside Barnes, in his eye line. “So he’ll see something familiar when he wakes up,” she says.

Steve gives her a grateful look and reaches for her hand. There’s something desperate in the way he clutches at her. Touch-starved. Before she has time to think about it, she’s pulling him toward her and wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders. He practically falls into her embrace, burying his face in her shoulder as his breath hitches. She can feel his muscles shaking under her hands as he sags against her.

“It’s going to be okay,” she murmurs, not because she believes it, but because she needs _him_ to. “He’s going to be okay.”

She rubs comforting circles in his back while he clings to her, until finally his breathing evens out and he pulls away, wiping at his eyes. “Sorry,” he mutters. “It’s been a rotten couple of days.”

It’s almost exactly what she told him that first time he showed up at her apartment, and she smiles at the memory despite herself. “When’s the last time you slept?” she asks him.

He makes a wry face. “What day is it now?”

“Why don’t you go lie down, I can stay with him.”

He shakes his head. “I need to be here if he— _when_ he wakes in case—” He stops and sighs. “I need to be the first thing he sees.”

“Okay, but first come with me,” Sharon says, taking his arm and steering him towards the door. “I need your help with something real quick.”

“What?” he asks warily, but he lets her pull him away.

“It’ll only take a minute,” she promises. She leads him to the living room and stops next to a tasteful and probably extremely expensive gray sofa. “Grab the other end. If we’re going to be camping out in your bedroom for the foreseeable future we’re going to need somewhere comfortable to sit.”

He almost sort of smiles, and lifts his end of the sofa with one hand like it’s made of styrofoam. Sharon stoops to pick up her end—which is _not_ made of styrofoam, by the way—and they carry it toward the bedroom.

“You okay down there?” he asks, eyebrows raised, as he backs down the hall.

“I’m great,” Sharon shoots back. “You just worry about your own end, Mr. Universe, it looks like it might be a little heavy for you.”

It takes some maneuvering to get the long sofa through the doorway, but eventually they get it positioned alongside the bed, so that Steve can stay close to Barnes but also hopefully get some rest.

Once the couch is in place, Steve goes to the dresser and pulls out two clean t-shirts, one of which he tosses to Sharon. “So you don’t have to sit around in that bloodstained shirt anymore,” he explains, stripping his dirty shirt off over his head.

Sharon unbuttons her gray oxford, which is pretty much a lost cause at this point, and dumps it in the trash can. It’s good that they can do this now without it being weird. They can change clothes in front of each other like professionals, and they can support each other and be friends, and it’s nice, except for the part where everything else is basically terrible right now.

His t-shirt’s huge on her, of course, but it’s soft and it’s clean and she almost manages not to think about the fact that it’s _his,_ that it’s been up against his skin and probably still smells a little like him even after it’s been through the laundry. “How do I look?” she says, twirling just like she did in her gold dress in Argentina.

The corner of his mouth twitches slightly. “You look great.”

She gets one of the extra pillows off the bed and plops it down at one end of the couch. “And now you’re going to lie down and get some sleep,” she orders. He opens his mouth to protest but she cuts him off. “Remember when Natasha told you to do what I said? Well right now I’m saying you need to get some rest while I sit here—” She grabs an armchair from the corner and drags it across the room so she’s got a good vantage of both Barnes and the door. “—and watch your back.” She sits down, crosses her arms, and gives him her best don’t-you-dare-argue-with-me look.

She can see him warring with himself, but eventually his exhaustion wins out over his stubbornness. “You’ll wake me if—”

“The second anything changes,” she assures him. “Scout’s honor.”

“Yeah, okay,” he concedes. “Maybe I’ll just lie down for a few minutes.” He stretches out on the couch, closes his eyes, and is snoring softly a couple of minutes later.

Sharon’s gaze flicks from Steve to Barnes. Lying there unconscious like this, it’s easy to see him the way Steve does: as the innocent, smiling young soldier in the photograph instead of the relentless professional killer. A memory comes to her of Barnes standing over her in Argentina, and the way his chin trembled when he looked at Steve. Of the word _monster_ scrawled in blood next to a steel coffin. She pushes it away, because it’s dangerous to let herself think about things like that right now.

They don’t know who or what he’s going to be if he wakes up. He might not be Steve’s friend Bucky Barnes, or even the man she saw in Argentina. He might be the Winter Soldier again. He might be someone who needs to be stopped, and if it comes to that Steve won’t be able to do it. He’ll need someone else to do it for him.

She unholsters her Glock, reassures herself that there’s a round in the chamber, and sets it on the arm of the chair within easy reach.


	11. The Evidence of Things Not Seen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a head's up, there is some discussion of depression and suicide towards the end of this chapter. It's just discussed, nothing actually happens to anybody and nobody does anything, but if you'd rather not venture into that territory at all, this is your warning.
> 
> I'm probably going to be away from the internet most of tomorrow, so y'all are getting this chapter a day early. Hope you enjoy it!

One second the bedroom doorway is empty, and the next Clint Barton is leaning against the doorframe like he’s always been there. Sharon’s spent the last two hours alert for the sound of anyone entering the apartment, but she never heard a thing. Not that she would expect to hear Barton coming ever.

“Hey,” he says quietly, tilting his chin in her direction.

“Where’d you come from?” she asks, her momentary adrenaline surge evaporating into relief at the sight of him—someone she trusts to back her up, and someone who knows Stark and has a better grasp of the interpersonal dynamics at play here.

“Miami.” He wanders into the room for a closer look at Barnes. The leather motorcycle jacket he’s wearing doesn’t quite disguise the outline of the shoulder holster concealed underneath. “This is him, huh?”

“That’s him,” she says. “Nat call you?”

His eyes flick to the gun sitting out beside Sharon. “Yep.”

“She fill you in on everything?” Sharon asks, shifting to slip her Glock back into the holster at her hip.

“Yep.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and gazes around the room. “How’s he doing?”

“Which one?” Sharon asks, because Steve’s still asleep on the couch beside Barnes.

“Either,” Barton says, leaning over to check out the window. “Both.”

“Barnes is still alive, which is saying something, because I’m pretty sure he left some of his brains on the pavement in Baltimore.” She shrugs. “Rogers is doing exactly how you’d expect.” She stands up and stretches out her back, which is stiff after hours of sitting on watch. “You seen Stark yet?”

“Nah. I’m thinking avoidance is probably the best play with him right now.” Barton eyes her appraisingly. “You should take a break, go get yourself something to eat. I got this.”

She knows that he does, that Steve couldn’t be in more dependable hands, but she’s still reluctant to leave him.

“I mean it,” Barton says. He wrinkles his nose. “Maybe think about a shower or something, Carter, you look like shit.”

She lets herself smile, for the first time since she got Steve’s call. “It’s good to see you too, Barton.”

* * *

Steve’s kitchen is practically bare. The enormous stainless steel fridge is empty except for a few condiments, which makes Sharon think he hasn’t been home in a while. The pantry’s almost as bad: all she comes up with is some oyster crackers, a few cans of soup, and a box of Corn Flakes.

She’s trying to decide whether she wants to eat dry Corn Flakes or actually go to the trouble of heating up the soup when there’s a knock on the front door of the apartment. Her hand goes to her gun as she makes her way over to it, and she catches a flicker of movement in the hall as Barton leans out of the bedroom.

Sharon peers through the peephole. Then she signals to Barton to stand down and opens the door.

“Hello,” says Virginia Potts, the CEO of Stark Industries, flashing a practiced smile. “I’m Pepper.” If Tony Stark looks smaller in person, Pepper Potts is even taller and more willowy than she appears on the covers of the numerous business magazines she’s adorned. “You must be Steve’s friend. Sharon, right?” Apparently she’s been talking to Banner.

“That’s right,” Sharon says warily, half-expecting Potts to lay into her or tell her they need to get the hell off her property. She’s widely known as the person who cleans up Tony Stark’s messes, and Sharon can’t exactly blame her for wanting them out of her boyfriend’s life at the moment.

Instead, she holds out a large paper bag. “I thought you might be hungry, so I brought some bagel sandwiches. There’s a half-dozen of them—I’ve seen how Steve eats.”

“Thank you,” Sharon says, accepting the bag. “That’s really thoughtful.” She steps back, holding the door open. “Do you want to come in?”

Pepper gives her a tight smile. “I’d rather not intrude.” Her eyes flick briefly over Sharon’s shoulder to the apartment beyond.

She’s _afraid,_ Sharon realizes. This woman who’s been on the cover of _Forbes,_ who easily handles the press and her board of directors and politicians and … and _Tony Stark,_ for god’s sake, is afraid to enter Steve’s apartment because of the man lying unconscious in the next room. And yet she made the effort to bring sandwiches anyway, to come here in person and introduce herself.

“But if there’s anything you need—” Pepper continues, reaching into a $10,000 handbag and extracting a business card which she offers to Sharon. “My private cell number is on the back of that card.”

It’s a standard Stark Industries business card with _Virginia Potts, Chief Executive Officer,_ printed on the front and a handwritten telephone number scrawled on the back in felt-tip pen.

“Please call me if there’s anything I can do for you or for Steve,” Pepper tells her. “Anything at all.”

She seems sincere, so Sharon thanks her sincerely. It’s a generous gesture under the circumstances. She has a feeling Tony Stark doesn’t know about it, and that he wouldn’t approve if he did.

When she goes back into the bedroom Steve’s sitting up, talking to Barton. “Pepper didn’t want to come in?” he asks, looking disappointed.

“No, but she dropped off some food,” Sharon says, rattling the bag. Barton’s claimed her chair so she sits down on the couch next to Steve and sets the food between them, eying Barnes.

Steve digs into the bag. He hands Sharon a sandwich wrapped in white butcher paper and holds another one out for Barton. When he declines, Steve shrugs and unwraps it himself. “I wonder how Tony’s doing,” he says quietly.

“He’ll get over it,” Barton says.

Steve shakes his head, frowning. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“Or he won’t,” Barton offers helpfully.

* * *

Bruce Banner comes back a couple of hours later to check on Barnes, as promised. He’s changed into slacks and a button-down shirt, but his hair’s still pretty unruly looking. “Well I’ll be damned,” he murmurs when he unpacks the dressing from the gunshot wound.

“What?” Steve says, leaning forward apprehensively.

“I guess you’re right about him,” Bruce says, shaking his head. “This wound has healed noticeably. More than I would have expected after just a few hours.” He re-bandages it with a dry dressing and moves on to Barnes’ head. “This one too,” he says, like he can’t quite believe it. He pulls a penlight out of his shirt pocket and pries each of Barnes’ eyelids open, moving the light back and forth to check his pupils for a reaction.

“Anything?” Steve asks hopefully.

Bruce shakes his head. “I’ll be back.” He shoots at look at Barton on his way out of the room.

Barton gets up and follows him. The unintelligible murmur of their voices drifts into the bedroom as they talk quietly by the front door.

Steve sinks back into the couch with a sigh. “They’re talking about me like I’m a problem that needs to be managed.”

“They’re trying to help you,” Sharon says. “We all are.” She reaches for his hand and squeezes it. He squeezes back and doesn’t let go.

Barton comes back a minute later, his eyes sliding over their clasped hands expressionlessly as he sits back down.

“Everything okay?” Sharon asks.

“For now,” he tells her.

* * *

A little while later Banner comes back with some kind of computer on a wheeled cart and starts fitting a cap of electrodes onto Barnes’ head.

“What’s that?” Steve asks.

“EEG—electroencephalography,” Bruce explains. “It measures electrical activity in the brain.”

Once the electrodes are attached he spends a lot of time hunched over the computer. After a while he goes over to Barnes and shines the penlight over his pupils some more. Then he goes back to the computer and frowns at it for a while longer. Eventually he removes the electrode cap.

“Well?” Steve asks impatiently.

Bruce shrugs. “The readings are consistent with a coma, but there’s no indication of cortical damage.”

“That’s good, right?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Bruce tells him. “That’s good.” Only he’s not exactly smiling, Sharon can’t help but notice.

“I’ll be back,” Barton says, rising and following Bruce out of the apartment.

Sharon looks over at Steve. He’s staring at Barnes with an expression so full of fresh hope that it makes her chest hurt. She wishes she could feel just feel happy for him instead of anxious.

Barton comes back ten minutes later with a tray of syringes and two tranquilizer pistols. “These darts are loaded with enough Ketamine to bring down a rhino,” he says, passing one of the pistols to Sharon. “But be aware: they take two to five minutes to kick in.” He slips the other pistol into the back of his belt and then points at each of the syringes: “Fentanyl, propofol, benzodiazepine.” He offers Steve an apologetic look. “Just in case.”

* * *

Natasha shows up as promised in the afternoon.

She goes straight to Steve and hugs him, and for a full minute they clingto one another like there’s no one else in the room. Barton just rolls his eyes but Sharon actually gets a little teary-eyed at the sight of them. She chooses to blame her fatigue for making her overly sentimental.

They order pizza that night and the four of them eat together, sitting on the floor of Steve’s bedroom and swapping stories like old friends. And it would actually be nice, it would be one of Sharon’s more pleasant recent memories, if it wasn’t for the man unconscious on the bed, and the way they all take turns casting wary looks in his direction.

Bruce comes back and tries the EEG again, but the results come out exactly the same. He accepts Natasha’s offer to share their pizza, though, and sits with them for a while, not really saying much, but seeming happy enough to be there.

Nat slept on her flight from Zagreb, so she’s fresh enough to sit up with Steve and Barnes overnight, and she offers to let Sharon use her apartment to shower and get some sleep. Her apartment turns out to be the one right next door to Steve’s, and she explains about JARVIS, the building’s computer AI, and sets it up so that Sharon can use voice commands to get in and out of both her apartment and Steve’s whenever she wants.

Natasha’s place is a mirror image of Steve’s, but the furnishings are more contemporary and eclectic. “Let me see if I can find some clothes for you to borrow,” Nat says, leading Sharon into the bedroom and throwing open her closet.

“Tell me we did the right thing bringing him here,” Sharon says, now that they’re alone.

“We did the right thing,” Natasha replies automatically. She tosses a pair of yoga pants and a v-neck t-shirt onto the bed. “What’s your bra size?”

“Natasha,” Sharon says sharply. Nat stops digging through her underwear drawer and looks up, eyebrows raised. “I just smuggled history’s greatest assassin into the Avengers’ inner sanctum,” Sharon says. “Are you sure he doesn’t pose a threat to everyone in this building?”

Natasha’s mouth tightens. “It’s not the sort of thing you can be sure of.”

“You’re really not making me feel better about all of this,” Sharon says unhappily.

Natasha goes back to rummaging through the drawer. “I think he wants to find a way back from everything that was done to him,” she says. “And I think we owe him that chance.” She looks up. “Is that good enough for you?”

Sharon nods, once. “Good enough.”

Natasha tosses a sports bra and a pair of underwear at her. “At least I finally got you to New York.”

“Mmm,” Sharon agrees. “Only I seem to remember being promised _all_ of the Avengers, and I still haven’t met Thor—who’s the only the one I actually _wanted_ to meet, by the way. Basically what I’m saying is it’s been a disappointing weekend.”

Nat’s mouth twists into a smile. “Thor’s pretty busy protecting the other eight realms, but maybe next time.”

* * *

Sharon feels a little better after a shower—it’s amazing what washing someone else’s blood out of your hair can do for your outlook on life. She knows she should sleep while she can but instead she ends up tossing and turning in Natasha’s bed. She can’t stop thinking about Barnes on the other side of the bedroom wall, and worrying about what’s going to happen when he wakes up. About who he’s going to _be_ when he wakes up.

Natasha loaned her a pair of pajamas to sleep in, but after a while Sharon gets up and trades them for the t-shirt Steve gave her. It’s comforting, somehow, even though it doesn’t smell like him anymore. Just knowing it’s his makes her feel more secure, and she drifts off to sleep not long after.

* * *

She’s jolted awake in the early morning hours by the sound of raised voices coming through the wall. There’s a brief moment of alarm before it registers that it’s just a verbal altercation she’s hearing and not a physical one. She recognizes the slightly frantic edge of Tony Stark’s voice, and the quieter murmur of Steve trying to reason with him. According to her phone it’s six o’clock in the morning; apparently Stark wasn’t kidding about giving them exactly twenty-four hours.

They’re still going at it by the time Sharon finishes getting dressed and lets herself into Steve’s apartment. Barton leans out of the bedroom doorway and beckons with a tilt of his head. The gang’s all there in Steve’s bedroom, but only Banner bothers to glance her way as she joins them. Barnes is still unconscious on the bed.

“Your father saved Bucky’s life,” Steve’s saying, facing off with Stark in the middle of the room. “Did you know that?” he asks, his voice scraped raw. “They were friends.” He looks so goddamn tired, Sharon hates so much that he’s going through this.

“And Barnes returned the favor by killing him,” Stark shoots back. “Some friend.” He’s a ball of kinetic energy, all tics and jitters, his eyes skating everywhere in the room except at Barnes, who he scrupulously avoids looking at.

“Howard was my friend, too—” Steve begins.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Stark says in a dangerous voice. “You don’t get to play that card with me. Not this time. Not about _this._ ”

“We’re going around in circles,” Natasha says. She’s leaning against the dresser behind Steve and her posture reads casual but her tone is anything but.

“Fine,” Stark says, turning to glare at her. “Let’s leave the brutal murder of my parents out of it for the moment. I mean, hey, it was over twenty years ago, right? What am I still hanging onto all that grief for anyway, it’s water under the bridge now. Instead let’s talk about the fact that the guy killed your buddy Fury barely a year ago—or have you conveniently forgotten that little detail?”

Natasha’s expression hardens. “I haven’t forgotten.”   
“Really? Because you don’t seem real broken up about it, and I kinda thought you liked Fury. I mean, you were the one who was always defending him to me.”

“Alexander Pierce killed Nick Fury,” Steve says, lifting his chin.

“And if we’re going to stand here and compare grievances,” Natasha adds, “The Winter Soldier put two bullets in me and he very nearly put Steve in a grave, but none of that was Barnes’ fault. The Winter Soldier was just a weapon—a tool. Pierce is the one who aimed him and pulled the trigger.”

“That’s a pretty convenient position for a former assassin to take,” Stark points out.

Natasha’s mouth twists into a dangerous smile. Out of the corner of her eye, Sharon sees Barton stand up a little straighter.

Banner steps forward, putting himself between Stark and Natasha. “You saw the file, Tony. You know what was done to Barnes. Do you honestly believe he can be held responsible for his actions under that kind of duress?”

“Way I see it,” Barton says, his expression even flatter than usual, “it’s no different than what Loki did to me.”

Natasha goes very still, but she studiously avoids looking at Barton. For a moment, no one says anything.

“It’s not just a question of culpability, though, is it?” Stark says into the silence. His tone is less angry now and more reproachful. “Romanoff said it: the guy’s a weapon. Only the safety’s off and we have no idea who’s calling the shots anymore. Do you get that you’ve essentially brought an unexploded ordinance into my house?” He rounds on Steve. “Do you know how many people live and work in this building? Have you even thought about the danger you’re putting them in by bringing him here? I mean, _Jesus,_ Steve, Pepper sleeps one floor up.”

“I know,” Steve says, clearly agonized.

Stark’s not wrong, and they all know it. He’s only saying what they’ve all been thinking—what Sharon as much as said to Natasha last night—but are too afraid to admit in front of Steve.

“This conversation is starting to sound uncomfortably familiar,” Banner says, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Only I seem to recall you taking the opposite position last time, Tony.”

Starks glares at him. “That was different.”

“Not really,” Banner replies.

“Bucky’s not a threat,” Steve insists. “He’s been getting better, remembering who he was—who he is. He won’t hurt us.”

Stark looks almost sympathetic. “Of course you’d fucking say that, Steve, the guy’s your best friend, you’d tell yourself anything to justify—”

“Ask Sharon, then,” Natasha interrupts. “She got a good look at Barnes in Argentina three months ago. Closer than anyone besides Steve.”

Stark rolls his eyes. “Well _sure,_ as long as Steve’s _girlfriend_ says it’s okay.”

Sharon isn’t even tempted to dignify that with a response, but Steve looks like he’s about to protest. Natasha beats him to it: “There’s a reason Fury put her in charge of Rogers’ security detail,” she says, crossing her arms. “She’s an expert in threat assessment and behavioral analysis.”

Banner looks at Sharon. “So what’s your assessment?”

She hesitates, cutting her eyes over at Steve before answering. “He displayed a clear willingness to commit violence,” she admits, “but there was no evidence of unfocused rage or aggressive behaviors. And he exhibited signs of both empathy and remorse, which means he’s not psychopathic. He was skittish, but he definitely recognized Steve as someone important to him, and despite the fact that I represented a potential threat, he made no attempt to harm me.”

“That’s all great,” Tonys says, flat and sarcastic. “But even if Criminal Minds here is right, that was before Humpty Dumpty got dropped on his head. According to Bruce the guy just suffered a catastrophic brain injury. Assuming he’s not a vegetable, we don’t really know _who_ he’s going to be when he wakes up, do we?”

“Which is why we’re taking precautions,” Natasha says evenly. “We’re prepared to handle any situation that arises.”

Stark steps up to Steve so that they’re eye-to-eye—or would be, if they were the same height. “You sure about that?” he asks, low and intent. “If your bestie wakes up and tries to get his murder on, are you really prepared to put him down?”

“ _I_ am,” Barton says.

“Not asking you,” Stark says, still focused on Steve.

“I won’t let him hurt anyone,” Steve says solemnly. “You have my word on that.”

Stark throws up his hands and turns away. “Fine.”

“What, just like that?” Natasha asks, eyes narrowed.

Stark shrugs. “Captain America gave me his word. I’m pretty sure if he breaks it the Declaration of Independence will spontaneously combust or something, so fine, do whatever, I’m not going to fight you on it anymore.”

“You’re okay with it?” Steve asks.

“No, I’m not fucking okay,” Stark replies sharply. “I’m pretty far from okay, but I guess I can live with it. Probably.” He softens. “Look, Steve, I get it, I really do. If that was Rhodey lying there I’d be losing my shit, too. I just ...” He trails off, his face twisting.

“I know,” Steve says, agonized.

Stark’s expression goes flat. “So don’t let me down, okay? I know he’s important to you, but I thought maybe the rest of us had become a little bit important to you, too. Don’t let us all down for one guy.”

Steve nods, too emotional to speak.

Stark’s eyes drift to Barnes for the first time and his gaze narrows, but he’s not looking at his face, he’s looking at his metal arm. He moves closer and licks his lips, his expression caught between disgust and fascination. Sharon can practically see the wheels turning in his head as the engineer starts to take over. “Tools,” he mutters, making a grabbing motion with his hand. “I need tools.”

“Why?” Steve asks, suddenly wary.

“Because this arm is cybernetic, which means I can disable it. Temporarily,” he adds before Steve can object. “That’s a good thing, right? So he can’t use his killer robot arm against us if he goes all Helter Skelter.”

“Do it,” Natasha says.

Steve hesitates, then nods and walks out of the room.

Stark lifts the arm gingerly, running his hands over it until something catches his interest just above the elbow. He prods it with his finger and frowns.

Steve comes back with a toolbox and Stark digs around in it until he comes up with a long, thin screwdriver. He sticks it into a slot in the arm and there’s a shiver of movement as the metal plates come alive, shifting up the entire length of the arm.

Natasha moves closer to Steve, Barton takes a step toward Natasha, and Sharon edges toward Banner, putting herself between him and Barnes.

“Tony,” Banner says tensely. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Always,” Stark says. “Now hush.” He keeps fiddling until a small panel pops open. Looking smug, he trades the screwdriver for a pair of needle-nose pliers and starts digging around in the panel. Sharon leans in for a better look. There’s a jumble of wires inside the panel. Stark picks through them until he seems to find the one he’s looking for, and yanks on it. Nothing happens. “Ha!” he announces in triumph.

“Ha what?” Natasha says.

Stark closes the panel and lays Barnes’ arm back down. “Done. Fini. Presto change-o. G.I. Joebot’s metal death arm has officially been rendered inoperable.”

“You’re sure?” Natasha asks, eyebrows raised.

“Of course I’m sure,” he replies irritably. He stands up and dusts himself off. “And I’m deeply offended you would even ask me that. You’re welcome, by the way.” He waves vaguely, heading for the door. “Now if you’ll all excuse me, I’d rather be pretty much anywhere other than here.”

As soon as the apartment door slams behind him, Steve sinks down on the couch by Barnes and buries his head in his hands. Banner and Natasha exchange a look before Banner silently follows Stark out of the apartment.

Natasha goes over to Steve and lays her hand on his shoulder. Without looking up, he reaches back and covers it with his own. After a moment she slips her hand out of his and turns away. She takes the tranq gun out of her waistband and passes it Sharon on her way to the door. “We’ll be in the living room,” she says quietly. Barton pushes off from the wall he was slouching against and follows her.

Steve sits up and leans back against the couch, shoulders slumped. Sharon hesitates before sitting down beside him. He doesn’t look at her. They sit without speaking for what feels like a long time.

“I want to ask you something,” he says eventually. “And I’d appreciate it if you answered truthfully.” He’s not smiling.

“So ask me,” Sharon says, bracing for the worst.

“What Natasha said earlier, how Fury put you in charge of my detail because you were an expert in behavioral analysis—”

“Yes,” she says, so he doesn’t have to finish. Because she knows what he wants to know. Because he’s smart enough to put two and two together. “Part of my directive was to evaluate your emotional wellbeing.”

His face goes hard. “In case I went nuts.”

“In case you started showing signs of post-traumatic stress, depression, suicidal behavior.”

He looks at her sharply. “You thought I was going to off myself?”

“It was just a precaution. After everything you’d been through, it would have been irresponsible not to be concerned.”

“I wouldn’t, you know.” His defensiveness is too telling. She knows there must have been moments when he thought about it, when maybe some part of him wished he had stayed dead. Which isn’t the same thing as actually being suicidal, not by a long shot, but it still probably hits a little too close to home.

“I know,” she says gently. “That’s exactly what I wrote in my report.”

“What else did you write in your report?” His face twists as he steels himself.

She desperately wants to not be having this conversation. Especially now, when he’s already raw. They’ve come so far, they’ve finally gotten to a place where they can be friends, and she doesn’t want to undo all of that by dredging up the ugly past between them. “It all came out in the SHIELD leak,” she says, hedging.

“I never looked it up. I didn’t want to know, but I do now. I want to hear it from you.” His voice has taken on a hard edge.

She can’t lie to him. If they’re really friends, they have to be honest with one another. “I said that you exhibited no signs of PTSD and no evidence of suicidal tendencies, but I had concerns that you might be at risk for a depressive episode.”

“A depressive episode,” he echoes contemptuously.

“You’d suffered a tremendous loss, you weren’t sleeping well, and you were socially isolated. That’s a lot of stress to be operating under without a support network.”

“How did you know I wasn’t sleeping?” he asks. “Never mind,” he says before she can answer, and the look he gives her stops her cold. “I know how.” He huffs out a breath, sharp and bitter. “Natasha kept trying to set me up on dates. That’s why isn’t it?” He presses his lips together. “She tried to set me up with _you._ ”

“And I said no,” Sharon reminds him. “I might have pretended to be your neighbor, but I wasn’t going to pretend to be your girlfriend. I couldn’t do that to you.”

He looks away, and doesn’t say anything.

It feels like a giant gulf has opened up between them and she wants so badly to reach across it—the urge to brush her fingertips over his cheek is almost overwhelming. Instead she settles for resting her hand on the couch cushion between them, almost but not quite touching his.

Steve stiffens and sits up, all of his focus on Barnes suddenly.

That’s when Sharon realizes that Barnes’ breathing has changed. It’s no longer the slow, quiet respiration of unconsciousness. It’s become uneven: a quick, shallow inhale followed by a longer, deeper exhale. Barnes' face moves, the muscles twitching as he comes to wakefulness.

 


	12. The Substance of Things Hoped For

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another warning for some discussion of depression and recovery. It's nothing worse than was in the last chapter, but if you'd rather avoid the subject altogether here's your chance.

Steve is perched on the edge of the couch, still with anticipation, every ounce of his being focused on Barnes. Slowly, Sharon stands and backs toward the door, her hand moving to the tranq pistol in the small of her back.

“Bucky.” Steve says the name like a prayer: desperate and breathless.

Barnes’ eyes flutter open. There’s a moment of disorientation before they finally focus on Steve—and then flicker quickly away again, sizing up his surroundings. Sharon’s hand tightens on the grip of the pistol. She senses more than hears Natasha and Clint move into position just outside the bedroom, out of sight but close by. Ready.

Barnes looks back at Steve. “Where?” he rasps.

“My place in Manhattan,” Steve says, his eyes gleaming. “You’re safe now, Buck. You’re safe.”

“Goddammit, Steve,” Barnes says softly, and Sharon lets herself relax, because the fondness in his tone is unmistakable. “You stupid punk,” he mutters, his voice hoarse with disuse. “Don’t you know there’s no such thing?”

Steve makes a strangled sort of sound that’s half laugh and half sob. Barnes’ chin does that same tremble Sharon saw in Argentina and then he’s crying too, shaking with ugly sobs, and Steve is leaning over him, clasping Barnes’ one good hand between both of his strong ones.

Sharon backs silently out of the room, allowing them their privacy.

* * *

By the time Steve finally emerges two hours later, Natasha has gone back to her apartment for a shower and Barton is dozing in one of Steve’s armchairs—or maybe just doing his usual trick of pretending to doze so he doesn’t have to talk to anyone—so it’s just Sharon who looks up when Steve wanders out. He looks dazed and completely drained, like he’s been through an emotional spin cycle.

She stands up and takes a hesitant step toward him. “How is he?” she asks.

“He’s back, he’s really back.” He shakes his head slowly, like it’s still sinking in. Even through the weariness he looks a thousand times lighter, like the weight he’s been carrying for the last thirty-six hours—for the last three years, really—has finally been lifted from his shoulders. “He’s himself again. He can’t remember everything, there are a lot of pieces missing, but he remembers a lot. He remembers enough.”

“I’m so glad he’s okay.”

A slow smile spreads across Steve’s face and it’s a real smile for once, for the first time since she’s known him. It’s a little bit dorky and bright enough to make his whole face light up, and it’s something totally new. It’s the least sad Sharon has ever seen him. For a moment it takes her breath away.

“Do you wanna meet him?” Steve asks with almost childlike eagerness.

Sharon swallows hard and nods. “I’d like that.”

The blinds in the bedroom have been drawn, casting the room into soothing dimness. Barnes is laying back on the bed with his good arm flung across his eyes but he shifts to look at them when he hears them enter.

“Bucky, I want you to meet my friend Sharon Carter,” Steve says.

Barnes’s gaze swings toward her and he frowns. “You were in Argentina,” he says slowly.

“That’s right,” she says, keeping her tone light. “Thanks for not killing me, by the way.”

He ducks his head and grimaces. “Likewise, I guess. Steve tells me you pretty much saved my life yesterday, so, uh, thanks for that, too.”

“I was just the getaway driver,” Sharon says. “But you’re welcome.”

Barnes frowns again, like he’s trying to remember something. “Carter?” he says, throwing an inquiring look at Steve.

Steve nods. “Yeah, Sharon is Peggy’s great-niece, if you can believe it.”

“Huh.” Barnes studies her with a bemused expression. “You don’t look anything like her.”

“No,” Steve says, smiling at Sharon— _beaming_ at her might be a more accurate description, actually—and it makes her heart stutter in her chest. “She doesn’t.”

* * *

Sam Wilson shows up a few hours later. “What the hell, man?” he exclaims in indignation. “Something this big happens and you don’t even call me? I have to hear about it from Natasha?” But then he claps Steve on the back and pulls him into a hug and everyone pretends not to notice the tears gleaming in both their eyes when they finally break apart.

Sharon’s relieved he’s there—it’s hard to imagine someone better equipped to provide support under the circumstances than a VA counselor—but it drives home the fact that she’s not needed anymore. The immediate danger has passed, and Steve’s got Sam now to help him through the stuff that comes after—and Natasha and Barton and Banner and Pepper Potts and even Tony Stark, grudgingly.

If anything, Sharon’s just in the way at this point. And she’s got work tomorrow in D.C. It’s time for her to go home.

Steve doesn’t try to argue when she tells him she’s leaving, he just nods and follows her out to the elevators. She presses the down button and stands there awkwardly, staring at the floor because she can’t bring herself to look directly at him.

His weight shifts from one foot to the other. “Thank you feels inadequate after everything you’ve done for me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, still avoiding his eyes. “That’s what friends are for.” Because they _are_ friends. After everything that’s happened she finally feels comfortable acknowledging it. It’s a gift, it’s more than she ever thought she’d have, more than she thought she’d ever deserve.

This time she’s ready for it when he hugs her. She closes her eyes and presses her face into his chest and inhales deeply, trying to fix every detail of this moment in her mind, because she knows it’s going to have to last her for a long time. Maybe forever.

The elevator dings behind her and he lets her go. It takes every ounce of willpower she has to turn away from him and step onto the elevator. As she presses the button for the garage she finally looks up so she can memorize his face.

He smiles and raises a hand in farewell just before the doors slide closed.

* * *

Sharon feels pretty proud of herself for resisting the urge to call Steve as soon as she gets home that night. She wants to know how he’s doing—let’s be real, she’s _dying_ to know—but she’s also aware that he’s probably feeling pretty overwhelmed and maybe a little sick of having her around, and he doesn’t need yet another person pestering him and asking how he’s holding up.

She can’t hold out forever, though—she is, after all, only human—so she calls him the next night as soon as she gets home from work.

“I hope it’s not a bad time,” she says when he answers.

“No, it’s fine,” he assures her. “Sam’s cooking dinner, but it won’t be ready for a while.”

“I’m glad someone’s making sure you remember to eat.”

“It’s almost like you think I’m incapable of feeding myself when you’re not around,” he says in faux indignation.

“Aren’t you, though?” she shoots back, and is rewarded with a soft chuckle. “How is everything?” she asks. “How’s Bucky?”

“He’s good. He’s amazing, actually.” And he starts telling her about all the progress Bucky’s made since she left, how he’s up and walking around already and his wounds are well on the way to being healed. Stark reactivated Bucky’s arm for him and even did a little fine tuning where it’d been damaged, and it sounds like maybe he’s reconciled himself to Barnes’ presence. Steve’s so elated he ends up gushing at her pretty much nonstop until Sam calls him to dinner. “I never asked how you day was, did I? Sorry, guess I got so caught up I forgot my manners.”

“It’s fine,” she tells him. “My day was great. I’m just glad Bucky’s doing well. Go eat your dinner.”

She can’t seem to stop smiling after she hangs up the phone. Her day was actually pretty shitty up until she talked to Steve—too many assholes to deal with on too little sleep—but none of that seems to matter anymore.

The next day Steve texts her a picture of of himself and Barnes. They’re standing together in Steve’s kitchen: Barnes is almost-but-not-really-smiling and Steve’s got this big dopey grin on his face, like a kid on Christmas morning. Sharon loses count of how many times she pulls out her phone to stare at it over the course of the day. She feels stupidly giddy, like she’s back in middle school in the throes of one of those ridiculous, life-consuming crushes.

They text back and forth a few times over the next several days, until Steve calls her one evening and confesses that he much prefers talking on the phone to texting.

“You and Natasha,” she teases him. Natasha is philosophically opposed to any method of communication that makes an automatic record of itself.

“I just like to hear a person’s voice when I’m talking to them,” Steve protests. “You miss out on all the nuances of tone with texting.”

“That’s what emojis are for.”

“ _That’s_ what they’re for?” he says, dry as the Mojave. “I assumed from Tony’s texts that they were for illustrating sex acts.”

* * *

Steve calls Sharon a few days later to tell her that Pepper Potts wants to hold press conference to announce Bucky’s heroic return home home after seventy years as a POW. SI’s team of public relations strategists are going to handle everything; all Steve has to do is stand up in front of the cameras and recite the words they give him. He’s understandably nervous about it, but Potts—and the small army of legal experts she’s called in to advise them—believe that going public is the best way to protect Barnes.

“What do you think?” Steve asks. “Should I do it?”

“Yes,” Sharon tells him. “Listen to Pepper.”

It’s a gamble, but it’s one calculated to win. The POW story is a good one, and people are bound to latch onto it, especially with Captain America behind it. As far as the American public is concerned, Bucky Barnes is a national hero—Captain America’s childhood best friend who gave his life for his country. It says so right there in the Smithsonian.

Despite the SHIELD leak, the existence of the Winter Soldier is still technically classified, his legacy of violence and sedition only fully understood by the top echelons of the intelligence community. There’s no way for the government to openly connect Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier without exhuming a lot of skeletons that most of Washington would prefer to keep buried. Sharon’s pretty sure they’ll back off for good once Barnes becomes a beloved public figure.

* * *

**WWII POW Returns Home After 70 Years Captivity**

By EVERETT BRODY, _The New York Times_

_NEW YORK – James Buchanan Barnes, an American soldier believed to have been killed in action during World War II, has returned home to New York after seventy years in captivity. Sgt. Barnes, who served under Captain America Steve Rogers in the 107 th Infantry Regiment, was captured by HYDRA forces in 1945, making him the longest-held prisoner of war ever to be returned to the United States. _

_The announcement of Barnes’ return was made by Rogers, standing alongside his Avengers teammate Tony Stark, at a press conference held today at Avengers Tower, where Barnes is reportedly recovering from his decades-long imprisonment and torture at the hands of his captors…_

* * *

_The White House, Office of the Press Secretary_

_Statement by President Matthew Ellis on Sergeant James Barnes_

_For Immediate Release_

_Today it is my honor to officially welcome home Sergeant James Barnes, held captive by our nation’s enemies for seventy years. On behalf of the American people, I would like to extend my thanks to Sergeant Barnes for his service to his country, and for his courage and sacrifice throughout this unimaginable ordeal. On this occasion we also remember the many troops who remain missing or unaccounted for in America’s past wars. Sergeant Barnes’ recovery is a testament to America’s unwavering commitment to leave no soldier behind on the battlefield…_

* * *

Over the next few weeks Sharon ends up spending more than a few blissful evenings on the couch eating carry-out and talking to Steve on the phone—sometimes for hours at a time—about nothing in particular.

After all the time she spent studying him and thinking she knew everything about him, it’s kind of remarkable how much there still is to learn about him. It’s like he’s finally relaxing his defenses and giving her a glimpse of the man underneath the Captain America armor.

He’s a lot funnier than she ever gave him credit for—his humor is dry, but it’s subtler and slightly goofier than the reflexive sarcasm he tends to employ as a defense mechanism. He’s also less serious than he used to seem, and less perfect, which is actually a relief. Turns out Steve Rogers can be as crude as any soldier when the mood strikes him, and he’s not always a flawless, shining bastion of compassion and sincerity.

Bucky’s recovery is turning out to be a rocky road, which is predictable, but Steve’s joy at having his friend back is sometimes overwhelmed by feelings of frustration or despair. It’s hard for him to see someone he cares about suffering, and he’s disappointed that Bucky seems to be keeping him at a distance. When Bucky moves out of Steve’s place and into an apartment of his own down the hall, Steve can’t help feeling a little hurt. Even though he understands, logically, why Bucky needs to do it, emotionally it still feels like a rejection.

“What does Sam say?” Sharon asks him, because Sam Wilson has been a rock through all of this. Not only did he get Barnes into a veterans’ support group in New York, but he’s been calling Steve regularly to help talk him through it.

“He says it’s not about me.”

“There you go,” she says. “Think about how overwhelming all this must be for Bucky. He’s not used to being around people anymore, and he probably feels a lot of pressure to try and be the person you want him to be—someone he doesn’t necessarily remember how to be anymore. He’s bound to need a break from that sometimes.”

“The two of us used to be inseparable. He was always there for me when I needed him and I just want to be there for him now.”

“You’re not kids anymore. You’re not even the same people you were during the war. You’ve both lived through some awful stuff and it’s changed you—him especially. You can’t expect to go back to the way things were, you can only try to go forward.”

“He didn’t get out of bed for three days,” Steve admits. “Wouldn’t go to his meetings, wouldn’t leave the apartment, wouldn’t even get dressed.”

“Oh, Steve,” she says, because there’s nothing else she can say, really. There’s no cure for what Barnes is going through. Pharmaceutical therapy isn’t even an option because his body metabolizes the drugs too quickly for them to have any effect.

“Clint finally talked him into going to the range. He’s seemed better the last couple of days, but I don’t know.”

Barton seems to be one of the few people Barnes doesn’t mind being around, and that’s been tough for Steve too, to watch Bucky seek out someone else’s company instead of his. It makes a perfect kind of sense—Barnes and Barton have been through some similarly fucked up shit, and Barton’s particular brand of undemanding impassivity is probably pretty soothing to Barnes’ damaged psyche right now—but it’s still hard on Steve, even though he’s trying to understand it.

He sighs. “This is what you were talking about when you said I was at risk for a depressive episode, isn’t it? This is the kind of thing you were worried about.”

Sharon picks up a throw pillow and hugs to her chest. “Yes.”

“I don’t know how to help him,” Steve says. “How do I help him?”

“You are helping him. Remember how I said you were at risk because didn’t have a support network? Well Bucky’s got one—he’s got you, and he’s got Clint and Sam and his veteran’s group. Just because you haven’t been able to wave a wand and take all his problems away doesn’t mean you’re not helping. Some things can only heal with time and patience and love. You’re giving him all of that. It’s helping.”

“Not fast enough.”

“I know,” she says sympathetically. “But he’s strong. He’s unimaginably strong or else he wouldn’t have survived this long. He’ll get through this too. He’ll get better.”

That night they stay on the phone for hours, sometimes not even talking, just listening to to the sound of each other’s breathing, until eventually they both fall asleep. Sharon wakes up in the morning with her phone lying on the pillow beside her, the battery completely drained.

As grateful as she is for this connection she and Steve seem to have developed, she’s not really sure what it means. Sometimes she feels so close to him that the physical distance between them seems miniscule; other times it feels insurmountable. Not only do they live in different cities, they both have demanding jobs that keep them busy.

She wonders sometimes if the distance has actually helped break down the barriers between them. They tried Skyping once, but it was too awkward, both of them stiff and self-conscious. Neither of them have suggested repeating the experiment since. Sharon thinks maybe the reason they can relax and be themselves on the phone is that they don’t have to look at each other while they talk. Maybe it’s only the fact that there’s no possibility of real intimacy that allows them to open up at all.

But where that does leave them? And how long can it last? Sharon tries not to think too hard about it, because that leads to wondering what she’ll do if it ever ends.

 


	13. Begin As You Mean to Go On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, from here on out, this is pretty much going to be all fluff, all the time. Hope y'all are okay with that. ;) Also, for the record, I wrote this a couple of months ago, so any similarities between events in this chapter and a certain Stan & Peggy scene in the Mad Men finale last Sunday are 100% coincidental. :D

Sharon leans over to grab her phone off the nightstand and smiles when she sees Steve’s picture lighting up the screen. It’s later than than he usually calls and she’d almost given up on talking to him tonight.

“Hey,” she says, adjusting the pillows behind her so she can sit up. “How was the dinner?” As a favor to Pepper Potts, Steve agreed to make an appearance at a big swanky charity dinner tonight, even though it’s exactly the sort of thing he hates most: being paraded around before an adoring public, getting his picture taken, and making smalltalk with strangers.

He lets out a disgruntled huff. “Miserable. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“Uh uh,” she assures him. “I was just watching TV.”

“What channel?”

“National Geographic.”

They do this a lot—watch the same movie or TV show together while they’re on the phone. It’s almost kind of like having him here with her, except for the part where he’s two-hundred miles away and she can’t see him or touch him. It’s been almost two months since Sharon was in New York, and even though she tried to hold onto the memory, she’s already forgotten how he smells.

“What did you eat for dinner tonight?” he asks.

“Chinese,” she says, neglecting to mention the sleeve of Girl Scout cookies she ate while she was waiting for the food to arrive.

“With vegetables?”

Somehow they’ve evolved from her pestering him about his dietary habits to him pestering her about hers. He’s convinced she doesn’t eat enough vegetables—which happens to be true, but she refuses to give him the satisfaction of admitting it. “Beef with broccoli.”

“And did you actually eat any of the broccoli?”

_Busted._

“Leave me alone,” she grumbles at him.

“How was work?”

“Annoying. A man with half my experience tried to explain to me how I should be doing my job at my own threat briefing this morning.”

He makes an indignant sound on her behalf. “I assume you put him in his place?”

“Since the agency frowns on defenestrations in the middle of briefings, I settled for telling him to sit down and shut the fuck up.”

“That’s my girl.”

She smiles to herself and changes the subject: “Tell me about the charity dinner.”

He sighs. “People kept trying to touch me. It was mortifying.”

“By people do you mean women?” she teases.

“Yes, and I don’t want to talk about it.” He’s quiet for a moment, and she can hear the sound of his television echoing hers through the phone. “What is this crazy bird doing?”

“It’s a bowerbird,” she says, smiling, because she’s seen this show before. “He’s collecting flowers to decorate his nest in order to attract a mate. That other bird is his rival. He’s chosen to collect deer poo.”

“Rookie mistake,” Steve says. “Never give a girl deer crap instead of flowers.”

Sharon laughs. “You sound as if you speak from experience.”

“Funny,” he says, yawning. He has an adorable-sounding yawn, she wishes she could see it.

“I don’t know, that girl bird looks pretty impressed,” she says, burrowing into the pillows. “Maybe deer crap was the right call.”

“Nope, see, she’s going for the guy with the flowers. She’s no fool.”

They fall silent again as the two birds on TV engage in an elaborate mating ritual. “You’ve got to admire the little guy’s initiative,” Sharon says. “That’s a man who knows how to woo a woman.”

“I guess men don’t really do much of that anymore, do they?”

“Wooing? Not so much, no.”

The show shifts to a segment on arctic foxes, and they’re lulled into another silence by the peaceful white landscapes and the soothing sound of David Attenborough’s narration.

“Sharon?” Steve says after a while.

“Mmhmm.”

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you, something I guess maybe I _should_ tell you, in case it wasn’t clear by now.”

Sharon goes still.

“I like you,” Steve says. “A lot. And for the record, it doesn’t have anything to do with Peggy, or with you pretending to be my neighbor, or even with the _multiple_ the times you’ve saved my ass. I just—I like you because of _you._ ”

About halfway through this speech Sharon starts wondering if she’s having a heart attack. She’s seen the PSAs about how the symptoms are different for women and she racks her brain trying to remember what they are. Tightness in the chest? Check. Shortness of breath, lightheadedness, and sweating? Check, check, and check. Hallucinations, though, she doesn’t remember anything about hallucinating.

“Um, hello?” Steve says tentatively.

“I’m here,” Sharon manages.

“Oh,” he says. “Okay. Now I’m wishing I hadn’t said anything.”

“Say it again.”

“What?”

“Just say it again. Just—just one more time. Please.”

There’s a pause that feels like a lifetime before he responds: “I really like you, Sharon.”

“I like you too,” she says without hesitation, the way she should have done it the first time.

“Oh,” he says. “ _Okay._ ” She can hear the smile in his voice.

“Yeah.” She’s grinning so wide her cheeks hurt.

They’re both quiet as the magnitude of the moment sinks in. Now that the can is open and the worms are everywhere, Sharon doesn’t really know what to do next.

“So,” Steve says eventually. “I don’t suppose you’d want to come up to New York some weekend?”

* * *

Two weeks later, Sharon is counting down the mile-markers on the highway as she drives toward New York. _One hundred twenty miles between her and Steve. Ninety miles between her and Steve. Forty-eight miles between her and Steve._

She left work well before noon, but Friday traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike is predictably wretched. She’s managed to get through fourteen long days since she and Steve declared their feelings over the phone, but these last few hours may actually be the death of her.

Eventually though, after a drive that feels more like twelve hours than the six it actually takes, she’s turning into the private garage for Avengers Tower in Manhattan. She rolls down her window and says her name into the intercom like Steve instructed.

The voice of Stark’s computer system greets her with a polite, “Welcome back, Agent Carter,” and the gate rises to grant her access. Her palms are sweating as she pulls into an empty space beside a bright orange Lamborghini. She can’t help noticing that the SUV Steve drove down for Peggy’s funeral is parked a few cars away, which does nothing at all to calm her nerves.

 _This is it,_ she thinks as she steps onto the elevator. In a matter of minutes—seconds, even—she’ll be with Steve again. She squeezes the shoulder strap of her overnight bag in a vice grip as the elevator climbs to the top of the tower.

When the elevator doors open, Steve is standing there waiting for her with a dozen red roses. He must have had JARVIS warn him when she arrived—either that or he’s been standing there for the better part of an hour waiting for her. She honestly can’t decide which scenario is more endearing.

She’s so distracted by the sight of him that she almost forgets to get off the elevator, and has to lurch awkwardly through the doors before they shut on her.

“You’re here,” he says, grinning so wide he’s practically glowing.

“I’m here,” she echoes, beaming back at him.

They stand there gaping at each other like idiots until Steve finally seems to remember the roses in his hand. “These are for you,” he says, holding them out.

“Thank you, they’re gorgeous.” She feels her cheeks redden as she accepts them. Jesus, she can’t even remember the last time she blushed over a man. It’s like she’s a teenager going on her first date, which is ridiculous because she is thirty damn years old and this is nowhere near her first date. It’s just her first date with Steve.

“I was going to get you deer excrement instead,” he says with absolute seriousness, “but it turns out it’s not so easy to get your hands on in Manhattan.”

She laughs, and then he’s leaning forward to brush a kiss against her cheek. Which is a thing they do now, apparently. She approves wholeheartedly.

He lifts her overnight bag off her shoulder and places a hand in the small of her back, which is also new, and very nice. “Come on, you can put your things in Natasha’s apartment.”

There was some rather awkward wrangling about where exactly Sharon would theoretically be staying this weekend. She would have been absolutely fine staying with Steve—that’s her preference, to be honest—but she didn’t want to be presumptuous and she doesn’t actually have any idea where he’s at in terms of sleepovers and/or sex on what is technically a first date. So she made some offhand mention of a hotel to feel him out, and he responded by pointing out that Natasha was in Madrid, and the next thing she knew he’d gotten permission for her to stay at Nat’s apartment over the weekend. Which in turn prompted a taunting phone call from Natasha that ended with the words, “Have fun on your sex date.”

So. Apparently Sharon is staying at Natasha’s place. Which is fine, she doesn’t want to rush Steve. Except that she totally does want to rush him. She wants it very, _very_ badly.

She stands around, not really sure what to do with herself, while he carries her bag into Natasha’s bedroom and then proceeds to bustle around in the kitchen cabinets looking for a vase for the flowers.

“How’s that?” he asks doubtfully, after he’s relieved her of the flowers and put them in water.

Sharon smiles. “I never realized you had such a talent for flower arranging.”

“You’re mocking me, aren’t you?” His forehead creases as he fiddles with the stems, trying to align them more elegantly.

“I’m not,” she assures him. “They look great. Better than I’d be able to manage.”

When he’s finally satisfied, he carries them over to Natasha’s dining table, sets them in the center, and stands back to admire his work.

“You’ve, uh, you’ve got something red on your shirt,” Sharon says, pointing at a spot just above his navel. Because, all right, yes, she was in fact staring at his abs, and thinking about what they probably look like underneath his shirt. Look, she’s a heterosexual human woman, she can’t help it.

Steve looks down at his shirt and grins. “Oh, yeah, it’s tomato from the sauce I’m making for dinner,” he says, and licks his thumb so he can rub at the stain.

Sharon swallows, hard. Because _holy shit,_ not only was the thumb-licking unexpectedly hot, but now he’s got his shirt pulled up to examine the stain, exposing a tantalizing glimpse of the very abs she’d just been imagining.

Steve drops his shirt—to her tremendous disappointment—and looks up at her, suddenly uncertain. “I made dinner. I hope that’s okay. I mean, we can go out if you prefer—I probably should have asked …”

“No, that’s perfect,” she tells him. “Staying in is better. I can’t even remember the last time someone cooked for me.”

A line from a TV show pops into her head, about how cooking for someone on a date is basically like saying _let’s have sex and I’ll cater,_ and Sharon feels the blood rushing to her face again. Dammit, that’s twice in five minutes. 

“I made bolognese,” Steve says. “I hope you like Italian.”

“I love Italian,” she says. But all she can think is _let’s have sex and I’ll cater._

She’s smiling at him again, kind of dopily, and she can’t seem to stop. Good lord, are his eyes blue. Implausibly, dazzlingly, _profoundly_ blue. Not that this any kind of a surprise to her—she’s always been well aware of his eye color and how it contributes to his overall attractiveness. But it is a whole new ball game when those blue eyes are gazing at you the way they happen to be gazing at her at this moment.

She’s seriously debating whether or not to just launch herself at him right now, decorum and bolognese be damned, when he asks if she wants to go say hello to Bucky.

“Sure,” she says brightly, even though Bucky Barnes appears nowhere on the list of things she’d like to be doing right now. Not that she’s not perfectly happy to see Barnes at some point, just that there are about a million other things she’d rather to be doing with Steve right now—or, more specifically, _to_ him—and there is no room in any of her fantasies for his childhood best friend.

“I never had a chance to show you around last time,” Steve says as he leads her back to the elevator. His hand finds its way to the small of her back again and stays there the whole ride down. He drops his arm after they step off the elevator, though, and she finds herself missing the warm pressure of his touch.

“This is the team’s common area,” he explains as they wander through a large lounge filled with couches and pinball machines and a poker table, with multiple television screens flashing at them from every wall. “There’s a shooting range over there,” he says, pointing. “Sparring ring. Spa. Snack bar.”

It’s all very swank and impressive—and pretty much exactly what she’d expect from Tony Stark. She tries to seem interested, even though it’s all she can do to tear her eyes away from Steve. He’s standing _right there,_ so close she can actually reach out and touch him. She’s ached for this for so long it’s difficult to act normal about it.

“... and this is the gym,” Steve says, holding the door open for her to precede him.

It looks like pretty much any other gym—and smells like it, too. Barton glances up from the parallel bars where he’s doing triceps dips and nods at them without breaking rhythm. Bucky Barnes is over on the far side of the room, going after a heavy bag like it’s dishonored his mother’s name.

“Hey, Bucky,” Steve calls out.

Barnes drops his hands and turns. And then he smiles—the first smile she’s ever seen cross his features—and waves them over. He grabs a gym towel and dries the sweat dripping off his face.

“Good to see you again,” he says to Sharon, a little shyly. “I’d shake but … ” He gestures helplessly with his sweaty right hand, which is wrapped with tape to protect it from the bag. There’s a glove on his other hand—the metal one—but she suspects it’s there to protect the bag more than his hand.

“You’re looking a lot better than the last time I saw you,” Sharon says. He looks amazing, actually. His wounds appear completely healed, his color’s back, and his hair has grown out to a nice, normal length. There’s still a thinness to him that seems unnatural, and a shadow lurking around his eyes, but it’s a huge improvement, it’s better than she hoped.

“Yeah, well, I’ve had Mother Hen here to care of me,” Barnes says, tossing a smirk in Steve’s direction. He’s trying to sound light and does a pretty good job of it, but Sharon can’t help noticing the brittleness beneath the surface. “So, what are you lovebirds gonna get up to this weekend?” he asks, lifting his eyebrows suggestively.

“Oh, uh, I don’t know, we, uh, haven’t really had a chance to talk about it yet,” Steve stammers, and _oh my god,_ he’s actually blushing, which may be the most adorable thing Sharon has ever seen.

“Steve’s making me dinner tonight,” she says, and then, because she loves how embarrassed Steve is, arches an eyebrow at Barnes and adds: “After that we’ll just have to play it by ear.”

The corner of his mouth dimples knowingly, and it’s so instinctive and unaffected, for a moment she catches a glimpse of the man underneath the trauma—and the boy Steve used to know. “Yeah, he’s been cooking up that bolognese all day,” Barnes says, giving her a wink.

“Uh, speaking of which,” Steve says, genuinely flustered, “I need to check on it so we’d better get going.” His arm slips around Sharon, steering her away before Bucky can tease him further.

“Have fun!” Barnes calls out to their retreating backs. Barton’s still doing his dips in the corner, and he manages to throw a smirk Sharon’s way before Steve drags her out of the gym.

Back in the lounge they run into Tony Stark and another man who can only be Thor—he’s so tall and broad-chested he actually manages to make Steve look puny by comparison.

“Oh, it’s you,” Stark says, giving her a sour look. “You didn’t bring any more wounded assassins, did you? Because we’re all full up at the moment.”

Sharon doesn’t rise to the bait, because she’s conscious of how much Stark has done for Steve and she is genuinely grateful. Instead she merely offers him a smile and a nod. “It’s nice to see you again, Tony.”

“Thor, I want you to meet my friend Sharon,” Steve says—and the next thing Sharon knows she’s being gathered into an enthusiastic bear hug and lifted clean off the floor.

“Um,” she says into Thor’s chest. “Hi?”

“Natasha extracted from me a promise from me that, should our paths cross this weekend, I would pass on her greetings to you in the form of a hearty embrace,” Thor proclaims solemnly.

“How nice,” Sharon croaks. Her feet are still dangling above the floor and it’s getting a little hard to breathe.

“You can probably put her down now,” Steve says.

Thor sets her back on the floor with a thump and Steve’s hand shoots to out steady her. He pulls her toward him protectively—but not too protectively, because he’s trying unsuccessfully to stifle a grin. Stark, meanwhile, is red-faced with laughter.

“It’s an honor to meet you,” Sharon says, smiling evenly up at Thor, who is the only one of them not in on the joke. “Did you know you’re my favorite Avenger?”

Thor’s brow knits. “What about Steve? Is he not your suitor?”

“Okay, we really have to be going,” Steve announces, tugging her toward the elevator.

“You kids be safe!” Stark shouts after them. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do! Which leaves a lot of room for experimentation, actually, so feel free to go nuts. _There’s more to life than missionary, Rogers!_ ”

Steve exhales in relief once the elevator doors slide shut on them. “Sorry about that,” he says, a little chagrined, but not nearly as embarrassed as he was by Bucky’s far gentler ribbing—which is incredibly sweet, actually. He shakes his head as they step off the elevator again. “That’s what I get for talking about you, I guess.”

Sharon reaches for his hand and tugs him to a stop. “You’ve been talking about me?”

A slow smiles spreads across his face and he squeezes her hand. “Only all the time. They’re probably sick of hearing about you by now.”

Something flutters in the pit of her stomach. Steve’s gaze flicks down to her mouth; his lips part slightly and she thinks maybe this is it, maybe—finally—he’s going to kiss her—

He lets go of her hand and takes a step backwards. “I really do need to check on dinner,” he says apologetically.

Sharon presses her lips together and nods. “Right.”

“I’ve still got to do a few things and get changed, but maybe you could come over at seven?”

“Seven,” she repeats, trying not to sound disappointed. “Sounds great.”

He gives her a hopeful, disarming smile and disappears into his apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a reward for reading this far, please enjoy this bonus gif that I found on Tumblr of Chris Evans ACTUALLY LICKING HIS THUMB:
> 
> You're welcome.


	14. Hold Ourselves Together with Our Arms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bumping up the rating for this chapter. So maybe don't read it at work or in class. Or do, if you want. You be you.
> 
> Only one more update after this one! We're in the home stretch!

At exactly 7:05 Sharon knocks on the door of Steve’s apartment. It’s probably petty of her to make him wait those extra five minutes when she’s been ready and totally bored since 6:45, but apparently she can be a petty person.

As soon as Steve opens the door she forgets all about being petty. He’s changed into a blue silk button-down that perfectly matches his eyes, and a pair of gray wool slacks that hug him in all the right places. It takes her longer than it should to realize her mouth is open. “Hi,” she says belatedly.

“You look beautiful,” he says sort of breathlessly. His eyes skim up and down her body in a way that totally validates her choice of attire for tonight: a gauzy peach floral sundress with a softly plunging neckline. She figured he’s already seen her in something skimpy and provocative, so better to aim for the romantic end of the sexy spectrum tonight. It seems to have been a good call.

As she steps over the threshold he leans in for another one of those cheek kisses, only this time he reaches up to cradle the back of her head with his hand, and a thrill runs through her that almost makes up for the half hour she just spent alone in Natasha’s apartment. Sharon is definitely a fan of this casual touching thing they’re doing now.

The aroma in Steve’s apartment intoxicating. Now that she’s actually here, it occurs to her that she’s not exactly sure what bolognese is. She’s pretty sure it’s some kind meat sauce that you serve over spaghetti, but she never knew spaghetti sauce could smell this good.

Steve offers her wine and Sharon accepts, a little surprised when he takes out two glasses. “It’s a special occasion,” he says by way of explanation. “I had to ask Pepper to help me pick it out, though, so if you don’t like it you’ll have to take it up with her.”

He’s a little helpless with the corkscrew, which is one of those fancy lever-style gadgets, so Sharon takes pity on him and takes over the task herself. When the wine is poured Steve raises his glass in a silent toast, gazing at her intently enough to make her stomach drop.

“Cheers,” she says, hoping the alcohol will disguise the warmth she feels rushing to her cheeks.

The wine is lovely—and probably very expensive if Pepper Potts chose it. Certainly it’s way out of Sharon’s usual ten-bucks-a-bottle league. Steve does an admirable job of pretending to like it.

While he puts the finishing touches on dinner, Sharon sips her wine and enjoys the sight of him puttering around his kitchen—most particularly when he’s at the sink with his back to her and she can brazenly admire the curve of his ass and the way his back muscles move under the fabric of his shirt. If she does not get to have sex with him at the end of this evening there is a very real danger that she may spontaneously combust.

The bolognese turns out to be lighter in color and much thicker than the tomato sauce from a jar Sharon’s used to, and there are slices of crusty French bread to go with it. “This looks amazing,” she tells Steve when they’re both seated. “But I feel the need to point out—and I’m frankly surprised you’d allow such an oversight, Captain—there are no vegetables on this table.”

He cracks a smile. “That’s what you think. The vegetables are mixed in with the sauce, so there’s no avoiding them.”

“Well played,” Sharon says, saluting him with her wineglass. “I’ve clearly underestimated my opponent.”

The bolognese, as it turns out, is sublime. Steve beams when she tells him so, and proceeds to tell her all about it: how the secret to the flavor is the nutmeg, how it has be cooked slowly for hours until all the liquid has evaporated, and how he crushed the tomatoes himself by hand. Sharon loves seeing this side of him—domestic Steve who pores over recipe books and watches the Food Network and went to all of this trouble to make dinner just for her.

_Lady and the Tramp_ aside, however, spaghetti is not exactly the daintiest meal to eat on a first date. They both try to be dignified about it, but after a few inadvertent slurps and splatters they end up laughing and tying their napkins around their necks, giving up all pretext of elegance. After that the ice is well and truly broken, and they end up chatting effortlessly throughout the meal—putting to rest Sharon’s fears that they wouldn’t be able to recapture the ease of their telephone conversations.

After dinner she helps Steve clear the table, but he refuses to let her help with the dishes. “What kind of host would I be if I let a guest in my home do the dishes?” he says, giving her a wink that makes her knees feel weak.

She hoists herself onto the counter, letting her shoes slip to the floor, because she might as well sit back and enjoy the view if she’s going to be enjoined from working. “But you did the breakfast dishes when you stayed at my place,” she points out.

“That was different.”

“How?” She swirls the wine around in her glass, smiling. She’s still on her second glass; she wants to be in control of all her faculties, so she can remember every single moment of tonight.

He throws a smirk at her over his shoulder as he slots the plates into the dishwasher. “You let me.”

“So you’re saying I’m a bad host, is that it?” Her tone is light and teasing, because she is _definitely_ a terrible host and she’s not ashamed to own it.

“I never said any such thing,” he insists, matching her playful tone.

“Ah, but you thought it.” She swings her legs, feeling happy. “I’m getting a very judgey aura from your side of the room right now.”

He closes the dishwasher and turns around to face her, crossing his arms and leaning back against the counter. “Then you’re definitely misreading my aura.”

“I’ll have you know I’m very good with auras.”

Steve arches a single, very attractive eyebrow. “Apparently not.” His gaze comes to rest on her feet. “You took your shoes off.”

“I did.” She swings one foot and wiggles her toes, which are painted bright pink. “Does it bother you that I took my shoes off?”

“No.” He licks his lips. “I like it.”

He’s still standing by the sink, all the way over on the other side of the kitchen, which is a situation that needs to be remedied immediately. Sharon sets her wineglass on the counter.

“Do you want some more wine?” he asks.

“No,” she says. “I want you to come closer.”

He takes a single step and smirks at her. “How’s this?”

“Not good enough.”

Another step. “How about now?”

She shakes her head.

He takes another step, and now he’s close enough that she can stretch her arms out and touch him. If she wanted, she could hook her fingers into his waistband and pull him the rest of the way toward her.

She wants. She wants _a lot._ But she resists. “Little more,” she says, tilting her chin.

He moves forward until his belt buckle is touching her knees. Then he lays his hands on the counter, on either side of her hips, hemming her in. “Is this better?”

She can’t stand it anymore, being this close to him and not touching him. Her hands reach for his face, pulling him toward her until their lips meet. It’s nothing like their last kiss, which was messy and fevered and a little bit desperate. This time it’s slower, sweeter—like they’re savoring each other.

“I hope that was okay,” she says when he pulls away, drawing a shaky breath. “That I just grabbed you and kissed you like that.”

He smiles, stroking her cheek. “It was better than okay.”

“Good,” she breathes, shivering a little. “I thought maybe you’d want to be the one to start the kissing. I thought you might be old-fashioned about something like that.”

“Not about that,” he says, and kisses her.

She wants to ask what he _is_ old-fashioned about, but she’s too busy being kissed and the thought goes right out of her head. His belt buckle is still pressing against her knees—rather urgently, in fact—and she opens her legs to welcome him between them. In response he makes an intriguing sound, almost like a whine.

Steve’s hands are on her face, in her hair, touching her shoulders, like he can’t get enough of touching her, which is fine because she can’t get enough of it either. She sighs happily against his lips. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?”

“I’ve got an idea, actually.” His thumb traces the scar where the bullet grazed her in Argentina. He bends down to brush his lips over it, provoking another shiver from her.

He smiles a self-satisfied little smile and then his mouth is on hers again. It’s hot and intense this time, and she clings to him for dear life, her tongue exploring as insistently as his. His hands move around to cup her ass and he jerks her toward him, closing the distance between her pelvis and his hips. He groans into her mouth as she grinds against him, and her legs encircle his waist, trapping him—not that he seems to have any interest in going anywhere at the moment.

Only apparently he does because he lifts her off the counter and carries her into the living room, supporting her with one arm under her hips while the other is tangled in her hair, pulling her mouth down to his. It’s kind of amazing they make it without tripping over anything, because his mouth never leaves hers and he can’t possibly see where he’s going, but he somehow manages to lower them both onto the couch so that she’s sitting in his lap.

Sharon settles into place, wiggling against him, and he gasps. Which only inspires her to grind down on him even more. His eyes flutter closed and he throws his head back, sinking bonelessly into the couch. It gives her an opportunity to run her hands over his chest, gazing at it in admiration, until it occurs to her that his shirt definitely needs to come off.

She only manages to get the top two buttons undone before she’s distracted by an urgent need to kiss the perfect skin of his chest that she’s just uncovered.

“Sharon,” he murmurs.

“Mmm?” she replies, moving on to the third button on his shirt.

Steve’s hands come up to capture hers, stilling them. “We don’t have to rush.”

She looks at him. “Do you feel rushed?”

“No,” he replies seriously. “I just want to make sure you don’t.” This is him being old-fashioned, she realizes, which is really very sweet. He always has had such good manners.

“I don’t feel rushed,” she promises him. “Okay?”

He nods. And then he drags her mouth down to his. It’s a really nice kiss—the nicest—but she needs to get that damn shirt off of him, she needs it off like she needs to breathe. She will not be deterred.

Her hands scrabble ineffectually at his buttons until finally she gives up and tears her mouth away from his so she can actually see what she’s doing. She hurries through the last few buttons and pushes the shirt off his shoulders. Steve leans forward to help her slide it the rest of the way off, but then there’s a stupid undershirt in the way. Sharon yanks it over his head, a little violently, but she’s in a hurry, she can’t be expected to be delicate at a time like this. And finally— _finally_ —there’s nothing standing between her and his wide, flawless expanse of chest.

She wants to melt into it like honey on a hot biscuit, it but she settles for kissing her way across it instead. When her tongue finds his nipple he makes that intriguing sort of whine again, so she grazes it with her teeth, delighting in the way it makes him wriggle underneath her. But then he grabs her head and pulls her mouth back to his—he keeps doing that, claiming her mouth like he can’t stand for their lips to be parted very long, which is so very hot.

His bare arms wrap around her, holding her tight against his chest, and the feeling of his skin on her skin is electric. She snakes her arms around him, her hands roaming over the planes of his back, which feel like they go on forever. One of his hands finds her breast and his thumb traces delicious circles around her nipple through the fabric. His other hand glides down her back, over the curve of her hip and then down the outside of her thigh.

Sharon shivers as his fingers slip under her skirt and begin moving slowly—so slowly—up the inside of her thigh. He’s going so slowly she thinks she may actually die before he gets there … until _finally_ his fingers brush against her underwear. She moans, jerking involuntarily at the touch.

“I guess you like that,” Steve says smugly, smiling against her mouth, and she can’t think of a clever reply, can’t even form the words to speak one if she could, because his fingers are sliding inside the elastic of her panties, pushing the lacy fabric aside, and _oh fuck_ he feels so good touching her she might actually come right now.

Except for the fact that he stops, which is just _so not fair._ But then he’s shifting her off his lap and pushing her back onto the couch, which is not so bad after all. Steve settles his weight between her legs and leans over her, kissing his way down her throat.

He gently tugs the strap of her dress off her shoulder until the cup of her bra is exposed. And then he’s pushing that aside too, his mouth devouring the curve of her breast until his tongue finds her bare nipple. She shudders, and then shudders again because his hand has begun skimming its way up her inner thigh again.

When he pushes the fabric of her underwear aside Sharon’s body reacts of its own volition, arching into him violently. She’s gasping and writhing under his touch and _good Lord_ she’s needed this, she’s needed it for so long she feels like she’s breaking into a million pieces underneath him.

“Good?” he asks, and he’s sucking hard on her breast, hard enough to leave a mark, but she doesn’t care, she can’t, because of what his fingers are doing to to her clit. She tries to say his name, but it comes out as a low moan—almost a growl, really. He seems to like that, because he huffs a laugh against her nipple and slips a finger inside her.

“You feel so good,” he murmurs, and all she can do is pant and curl her fingers into his back, digging into the solid muscle. He slips a second finger inside her and she practically dissolves into the couch. Something’s building up inside her, but it’s too soon, she doesn’t want it to happen like this—not the first time, anyway.

“Wait,” she manages to gasp, and he goes immediately, perfectly still. His hand withdraws from between her legs—which is too bad, it really is, but she’s got her eyes on a bigger prize. “I want you,” she says, stroking his erection through his pants, “inside me. Now.”

It’s Steve’s turn to shudder, but when she reaches for his belt buckle he pulls away. And then he pulls her up off the couch and leads her by the hand toward the bedroom. Which is so much better, really, than the couch, she doesn’t know why she didn’t think of it. Their first time shouldn’t be fumbling around on the sofa cushions like a couple of horny teenagers, not when he’s got such a nice big bed in the very next room. 

He’s walking backwards, pulling her along, and she can’t help but surge forward to kiss him. Stevee nips at her lower lip playfully and spins her around until she feels dizzy, and they stumble into his bedroom, laughing and clutching at one another for balance.

He takes a second to toe off his shoes and socks before lunging at her greedily. His mouth finds the spot where her neck meets her shoulder and Sharon’s head lolls blissfully to one side. While she’s distracted by that Steve’s fingers find the zipper on the back of her dress and tug it gently down.

She looks up at him, smiles, and eases the dress off her shoulders. It falls to floor in a pool at her feet, so she’s standing before him in nothing but her bra and panties.

He gazes at her hungrily. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, but now he’s at liberty to consume her with his eyes and he does, taking his time about it.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs, running his hands down her arms, across her stomach, over her hips. And then up her back to the clasp of her bra. She feels the band release and shrugs her shoulders, letting the bra fall away.

His eyes go wide, but she only gives him a second to appreciate the view before she’s tugging at his belt buckle and unzipping his pants. She barely even gets a glimpse of his boxers before she’s yanking them down over his hips along with his pants. He steps out of them, so that he’s utterly exposed from head to toe, and then it’s Sharon who’s gaping and staring covetously.

Steve grabs her and kisses her—and he’s starting to seem a bit desperate now, which is okay, because she’s feeling desperate, too. His hands move to her shoulders and he shoves her back onto the bed a little roughly, which only turns her on even more. He leans over her and eases her underwear down her legs, grinning as he tosses them carelessly over his shoulder.

Sharon grabs him and pulls him toward her, because she can’t get enough of him, can’t get him inside her fast enough. Her hand finds his cock and wraps around the shaft, and she feels more than hears his groan of pleasure.

“Rubber,” he gasps. “Nightstand.”

“Don’t need it,” she says, still stroking him. “I’ve got an implant. And since you’re impervious to disease—”

He silences her with a kiss. Which is fine by her because she needs him inside of her, like, _yesterday._ Her whole body arches toward him like she’s ferrous metal and he’s a magnet, and she guides him inside of her.

He convulses a little when the head of his cock meets her warm, wet flesh, his eyes fluttering shut for a second. But then he opens them again, intent on watching her face as he slowly— _too_ slowly, _agonizingly_ slowly—sinks into her, inch by excruciating inch. Sharon has to bite her lip to keep from begging, because she is not a beggar, she is _not_ going to beg, not even for him. 

Steve thrusts his hips, and finally he’s all the way inside of her. She feels her body stretching to accommodate him and then it just—releases. It’s the most amazing feeling, she wishes she could bottle that feeling, and  _oh god_ he’s so deep and there’s pressure but it’s the best kind of pressure in the world.

He moves inside her, slowly at first, and tenderly, while they both revel in the feel of each other, but they’re too impatient to keep it up like that for long. His movements speed up as the tension starts to build and she wraps her legs around him, allowing him to sink even deeper. His hips thrust even harder and faster until they’re both almost frantic with desire.

Sharon’s fingernails dig into his shoulders. “Steve,” she gasps. “Please, oh god, please—” Apparently she is going to beg for him, after all, which is a little disconcerting. But then it stop mattering, because his thumb finds her clit and sends her over the edge into oblivion.

While she’s still riding the waves of pleasure she feels his movements grow frenzied inside her, and then he’s coming too, gasping her name as every muscle in his body tenses and then abruptly releases. He sags against her, their limbs intertwined, their sweat-soaked skin sticking together up and down the lengths of their bodies.

God, she loves the weight of him, loves the feel of his heaving chest pressed against hers. Loves the sound of his breath as he gradually comes back to himself. When he finally pulls out of her she feels a little like she’s lost something, but then he raises his head and gives her adorably sheepish grin. “Hi.”

Sharon answers him with a kiss, gentle and soft.

Steve nuzzles her cheek and then shifts his weight. “I should—”

She feels him trying to move away and tightens her grip on him. “Uh uh. No going anywhere.”

The corner of his mouth dimples. “Okay,” he agrees, and nuzzles her ear. Sharon is a huge fan of this nuzzling thing. It’s definitely going on the list of things she can get used to. Steve shifts so the weight of his hips isn’t crushing her, and lays his head down on her shoulder with his cheek pillowed on her breast and his arm draped across her stomach. “Better?” he asks.

“Mmm perfect.” Her arm curls protectively around his back and her fingers sink into his hair. Sharon sighs contently, basking in the sight of his body curled around hers.

He looks so relaxed, more relaxed than she’s ever seen him. His breathing slows and he’s so still she thinks maybe he’s fallen asleep. Until he surprises her by speaking: “You know what the hardest part was for me, when I first woke up after the ice?”

She strokes his head. “Hmm?”

“Accepting that all this wasn’t temporary. I kept thinking I could go back, that eventually I’d wake up from this bad dream and be back home where I belonged.”

Wordlessly, she reaches for the hand he’s resting on her stomach and twines her fingers with his.

“Even when I finally admitted to myself that I was never going back,” Steve says, gently squeezing her fingers, “that this was my life now—I couldn’t stop looking backwards. Everything in this world seemed so hard, so _empty._ Nothing here felt as real to me as the past was. Every day I’d get up and do the things I was supposed to do, but there was no joy in it. There was never anything to look forward to—until I met you.” 

Sharon blinks, fighting tears.

His thumb moves over the palm of her hand, tracing slow, gentle circles. “You were the first thing that made me feel alive again. Just the thought that I might get to see you or talk to you again, it gave me something to hope for, a reason to think about the future instead of the past.” He turns his head so he’s looking up at her. “So thank you for that.”

“Oh, Steve—”

“Hey.” His palm moves to her cheek. “I didn’t mean to make you sad, I just wanted you to know how important you are to me.”

“I’m not sad,” she says, smiling at him. Because she’s not. She’s happy—so happy she almost can’t bear it.

“Really? Because you’re sort of crying.”

She kisses him, because she can’t do anything else. His lips are warm and kind of rough, and his tongue thrusts eagerly into her mouth, like he’s trying to lap her up.

“You know what I want?” he asks, leaving tiny kisses on her forehead, her throat, her collarbone.

“Mmm, I think I can guess.”

He sits up suddenly, grinning. “Ice cream.”

She stares at him. “Okay, that’s not what I was going to guess.”

“Not that I don’t want … other stuff, too,” Steve says, lifting her hand to leave a kiss in her palm. “Because I definitely do. But I figure we’ve got all night—and we’re going to need to keep our strength up.”

Sharon laughs and lets him pull her off the bed and lead her into the kitchen, because he’s right, they do have all night. They have all the time in the world, actually.

 


	15. Nowhere That I Thought I’d Be By Now

Sharon wakes to the caress of Steve’s lips on her mouth.

It’s still dark, which means it is definitely too early to be awake. Especially after all of their exploits last night, which kept them occupied well into the wee hours.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispers. “I’m going for a run.”

Evidently he is a lunatic. Seriously, just because his super metabolism means he doesn’t need as much sleep as a regular human, there is no excuse to go dragging himself out for a jog at ohmygodwhattimeisit o’clock. Not when there is a nice, warm bed available for snuggling in.

Sharon reaches out for him sleepily, meaning to pull him back into the bed with her, but he’s already gone. Sighing, she settles for snuggling into the covers and falls right back to sleep.

* * *

The next time she wakes, it’s to the smell of coffee and bacon. It’s actually light outside by then, so she drags herself out of bed and helps herself to one of Steve’s t-shirts. Her overnight bag, she notices, is sitting just inside the door of the bedroom—he must have brought it over from Natasha’s while he was out—but she sees no reason to wear one of her own shirts when she can wear one of his.

Sharon finds him in the kitchen, standing over a waffle iron. He looks up at her and smiles. “I like you in my shirts.”

“Good, because I like me in your shirts, too.”

He’s wearing athletic shorts and a t-shirt and his hair is damp and disordered and it’s ridiculous how sexy he looks like that so she goes straight over to him and kisses him. His shirt is sticky with sweat and somehow that’s even sexy too.

“Hi,” he says, running his fingers through her hair. “Did you get enough sleep?”

“No,” she tells him. “Someone kept me up half the night.”

“That’s too bad.” He brings her hand to his lips. “Whoever it was should be ashamed of himself.”

“I’m not complaining,” she says. “In fact I’m hoping he does it again tonight. And this afternoon. And this morning.” She kisses him again.

His arms wrap around her, bending her back a little, just like Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in _Gone with the Wind._ Sharon hates that movie, but she really likes the way Steve’s kissing her right now. Maybe Rhett and Scarlett were onto something after all.

The waffle iron beeps and he lets go of her. “Hang on.”

She patiently waits until he takes the waffle off the iron before kissing him again.

He finishes kissing her and pulls away. “The waffles will get cold.”

“I’m not hungry for waffles right now.” Her stomach growls nosily, making her a liar.

He laughs. “Waffles first. After that, you can have anything you want.”

“Anything?” she asks.

He kisses her again and smiles. “Anything.”

* * *

It’s eleven o’clock and they still haven’t gotten dressed. Technically, she supposes Steve was dressed for a little while, but then he got undressed again, and hasn’t gotten re-dressed since. Sharon’s taking it as a personal victory.

They’re curled up together on his couch, because they never made it back to the bedroom after breakfast. Sometimes it can be fun to fumble around on the sofa cushions like a couple of horny teenagers.

“What do you want to do today?” he asks.

“You,” she answers automatically.

He nuzzles against her throat. He hasn’t shaved yet this morning and his face is actually bristly for once. “Anything else? We could go sightseeing.”

His stubble is tickling her neck, but she likes it so she doesn’t move. “I’ve actually seen New York before.”

He takes her hand, playing with her fingers. “But you’ve never seen New York with me.”

“That is a good point,” she concedes, kissing his knuckles.

His phone vibrates on the coffee table. He reaches for it and reads the message on the screen. “Tony and Pepper are having a barbeque this afternoon. We’re invited.”

Sharon makes a face. “We’re not going, are we?”

“We don’t have to.” He looks up at her. “It’s a nice gesture, though. Especially for Tony.”

“You want to go, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” he admits. “But not if you don’t.”

* * *

They go to Tony and Pepper’s barbeque. Which involves caterers and a professional bartender, because of course it does.

“It’s so nice to have another woman around,” Pepper says, taking Sharon’s arm like an old friend and leading her out to the terrace. “I feel like I’m drowning in testosterone around here most days.”

“Speaking of,” Stark says. “What happened to Thor and Jane?”

“They’re inside,” Pepper says with a meaningful look.

“Of course they are.” Stark rolls his eyes. “That’s a god for you: invite him to a barbeque and he ends up plowing maidens in your master suite.”

Pepper leans over to Sharon and murmurs: “I think they might be fighting, actually.”

“So, Cap,” Stark says, turning to Steve and clapping him on the back. “How’s it feel to finally plant your flag in the twenty-first century? Everything still work the way it did back when dinosaurs roamed the earth?”

Steve stares at him expressionlessly.

“The battle of balls deep?” Stark persists. “A bit of the old In-N-Out? You did Slytherin her Hufflepuff last night, did you not?

Pepper gifts Sharon with a sympathetic look. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Scotch,” Sharon says, because she has a feeling she’s going to need it.

* * *

Maria Hill shows up in a t-shirt and jeans and heads straight to the bar for a martini before coming over to say hello. She greets Steve warmly and then turns to Sharon, her smile twisting into a knowing smirk. “Sharon.”

Sharon meets her gaze levelly. “Maria. Good to see you again.”

Pepper starts telling them about a charity fundraiser she’s in the middle of putting together. It’s something to do with after-school art classes for at-risk youth, and Steve is very interested.

Maria leans over to Sharon and says, very quietly: “On behalf of all womankind, allow me to say, _well done._ ”

Sharon nearly chokes on her scotch.

* * *

Thor and his girlfriend come back to the party eventually. If they were fighting (or having sex in Stark’s bedroom) there’s no sign of it now. Thor introduces Jane to Sharon. Fortunately, there’s no repeat of the hugging incident, but he does make a point of telling everyone that he’s Sharon favorite Avenger.

Jane smiles indulgently. “Thor’s everyone’s favorite. I mean, he’s a god, right? You don’t see that every day.”

“No, you do not,” Sharon agrees.

Thor and Steve wander off to compare biceps, or whatever it is that enormous, hunky superheros talk about in their downtime. Which is when Sharon makes the mistake of asking Jane what she does for a living. Jane immediately launches into an enthusiastic and extremely detailed monologue on quantum field theory, and Sharon tries to keep up but it’s all so far over her head that her attention wanders over to Barton and Bruce Banner, who are sitting nearby arguing about Bigfoot, of all things.

“If there’s no such thing,” Clint says, “then tell me what I saw up at Harrison Lake in ’05.”

Banner shakes his head. “A bear? A person? Literally anything other than Bigfoot.” Sharon can’t tell if Banner knows he’s being trolled or not.

“Come on, Doc, there’s a reason they call me Hawkeye. You think I can’t tell some dude in a bear suit from a Bigfoot?”

“Clearly you can’t,” Banner says, smiling into his drink.

“Guy I know says he once saw a whole family of Bigfoots deep in the Okefenokee”

“It’s not a species,” Banner insists. “You can’t pluralize Bigfoot.”

“Sure you can,” Clint says. “One’s a Bigfoot. More than one you got Bigfoots. Everyone knows that.”

“I’m sorry,” Jane says, finally coming back down to earth. “I’m probably boring you. I have a problem with filters, in that I don’t really have them. When I’m excited about something I can get single-minded. Sometimes it makes the people around me wants to blow their brains out.”

“I think it’s pretty great,” Sharon tells her. “It’s not often you get to meet someone who’s actually excited about their work.”

“So what do you do?”

“I work for the CIA.”

Jane makes a face. “You mean like a spy?”

“Exactly,” Sharon agrees.

* * *

Bucky Barnes shows up an hour after everyone else, looking tense. He manages to exert himself to a few minutes of smalltalk before retreating into a stony silence, and none of Steve’s best attempts at including him in the conversation seem to help much. After thirty minutes he excuses himself and takes off.

Steve watches him leave, crestfallen.

Sharon touches his arm. “Do you want to go after him?”

Steve shakes his head. “No, it’s fine,” he says, even though it’s clearly not.

“Focus on the fact that he came in the first place. That’s a big deal, it had to be hard for him.”

“I know.”

“Come on,” she says, taking Steve’s hand. “Let’s go get you some pie.”

* * *

Three pieces of pie later, Steve is mostly back in a good mood, and deep in conversation with Stark about improvements to his uniform. Sharon found it sort of interesting at first, but after listening to ten straight minutes of wrangling about the shape and placement of a single cargo pocket, she wanders over to the bar, where Maria Hill is acquiring another martini.

“Can I ask you something?” Sharon says, because she’s got a few scotches in her at this point so why not.

“You can ask,” Hill says, chewing on an olive.

“What the hell are you doing working at Stark, anyway?”

“Privatizing global security,” Pepper says, coming up behind them.

_Oops._

“Sorry,” Sharon says. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine.” Pepper waves her hand vaguely. “It’s not like Maria was exactly thrilled about coming to work for us at first.”

“No, I was not,” Maria says into her martini.

“But I persuaded her to give it a shot for six months, and now look at her. She actually likes it—not that she’d ever admit it.”

Hill shrugs. “I like the paycheck.”

Pepper turns to Sharon and her gaze narrows, like she’s sizing up livestock at a county fair. “What about you?”

“What about me?” Sharon asks warily.

“Do you like working at the CIA?”

Hill snorts.   
  
“What?” Pepper asks her.

“She fucking hates it,” Hills says. She peers at Sharon over the top of her glass. “Right?”

Sharon meets her gaze evenly. “I’ve had worse jobs.”

Hill raises her glass and nods. “Cheers to that.”

“So why haven’t you made her an offer?” Pepper asks Hill. “Do you want me to do it? I’m very good at persuading people to do what I want.”

“There are other plans for Sharon,” Hill says mysteriously.

Sharon looks at her sharply. “Care to tell me what that means?”

Hill smiles. “Nope.”

“Spies,” Pepper says, rolling her eyes. “It’s impossible to get a straight answer out of any of you.”

* * *

The sunset is breathtaking from Stark’s terrace. As Sharon and Steve are admiring the strokes of color stretching across the sky, it occurs to her that she hasn’t kissed him in at least three hours, which is a genuine tragedy. She pulls him toward her and rectifies the oversight. He tastes like apple pie.

“Well at least now we know Cap’s not gay,” Tony Stark says loudly.

Sharon finishes kissing Steve and looks over at Stark, arching an eyebrow. “What makes you think he’s not a switch hitter?”

Stark goes very still. “ _Is_ he?” His eyes swing to Steve. “ _Are_ you?”

“We’re going now,” Steve says, smiling and turning to Pepper. “Thank you very much for inviting us.”

Pepper steps forward to plant a kiss on his cheek. “I’m so glad you decided to come. Both of you.” Then she gives Sharon a hug. Because apparently they are hugging friends now. “You’re very good for him,” Pepper murmurs into Sharon’s ear. “Don’t be a stranger.” She gives Sharon an extra squeeze to punctuate the sentiment before releasing her.

They make the rest of their goodbyes and head for the door. As soon as they’re safely on the elevator Steve reaches for her, his arms encircling her waist. “Thank you for doing that. I know it couldn’t have been much fun for you.”

“I was with you,” she says, leaning into him. “That’s all I care about.”

The elevator doors open and they break apart. “You’re too good to me.” He takes her hand and raises it to his lips as they step into the hall.

“Not possible,” she says.

“I mean it,” he says, still holding onto her hand. “I want to be good to you, too.”

“You are. You were particularly good to me this morning. Also last night. Several times.”

He blushes a little, which is just too adorable. She loves how bashful he can be. She also loves how sometimes he’s not bashful at all.

“You have no idea how happy you make me,” he says.

She raises her eyebrows. “I think I have an idea.”

He grabs her and kisses her. And then he scoops her up and throws her over his shoulder. He carries her into his apartment, straight into the bedroom, and he tosses her onto the bed.

  
“Why, Captain Rogers,” she says, laughing. “How very forward of you!”

The look he gives her turns her insides to jelly. “Ma’am, you haven’t seen nothing yet.”

* * *

For the second morning in a row, Sharon’s awakened by Steve’s lips. This time they’re on the back of her neck and he’s still in the bed, his body warm against hers, which is a definite improvement over yesterday. _However._ It’s still dark out, which means it is too damn early to be awake.

“Mmmm,” she sighs into the pillow. “Don’t you ever sleep in?”

His mouth moves to her shoulder. “I’ll have you know I’ve slept all the way until 7 a.m. on several occasions.”

She groans. “This morning person thing is going to be a real problem, isn’t it?”

“I could have gone for another run,” he says, pressing a string of kisses into her skin, “but I figured this is our last chance to have wake-up sex—”

“Don’t,” she says, frowning.

He stops kissing her. “What?”

“Don’t remind me that it’s our last morning together. I can’t stand to think about it.”

“Hey,” he props himself up on one arm so he’s looking down at her. His hand comes up to cup her cheek. “It’s only the last until the next time. Which will hopefully be very soon.”

“I’m stuck on weekend stakeouts the rest of the month.”

“Well, I was thinking I could come down to D.C. this time, and there’s no reason I can’t come during the week. Maybe week after next?”

She tries not to look too hopeful. “What about Bucky? I thought you didn’t feel comfortable leaving him on his own.”

“He’s not on his own, and he doesn’t need me hovering around him twenty-four seven anymore. It’s time I started giving him some more space. I think it would probably be good for both of us.”

She captures his hand in hers. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” He kisses her. Smiles. “Now about that wake-up sex …”

* * *

Steve takes her to breakfast at his favorite diner, just a few blocks from the tower. The elderly waitress who brings their coffee calls him sweetie and asks who his pretty lady friend is. Sharon can see why he likes the place.

After they stuff themselves with pancakes they go to the Empire State Building like a couple of tourists. Steve wears a baseball cap and sunglasses so he isn’t recognized. Once they’re at the top, he confesses that he hasn’t been up there since 1943, when he was touring with the USO.

“Why not?” Sharon asks. “Weren’t you curious what it looks like now?”

He shrugs. “I didn’t really want to see how much the view had changed.”

She squeezes his hand. “What do you think, now that you’re here?”

He looks at her and smiles. “It’s not so bad after all.”

They go to Central Park next and Steve buys them strawberry shortcake ice creams to eat while they stroll the paths. Sharon tries not to think about the fact that it’s their last day together, but it keeps creeping up on her and knocking the wind out of her sails. Whenever Steve notices her looking wistful he pulls her hand to his lips and kisses it, which makes her feel better, but doesn’t change the fact that she has to leave him in a few hours.

After they finish their ice cream they find a patch of grass in the sun and lie on their backs, holding hands and gazing up at the clouds.

“That one looks like koala,” Steve says, lifting up both of their hands to point.

“How is that a koala?” Sharon asks.

“You have to turn your head and kind of squint.”

Sharon turns her head and squints. “Looks more like a blob to me.”

“You’re not playing right. You have to use your imagination.”

“Okay, fine,” she says, pointing. “That one looks like a surface-to-air missile launcher.”

Steve laughs. “You’re terrible at this.”

“Maybe _you’re_ terrible at this, you ever think of that?”

He turns his head to look at her, his expression soft. “I want to tell you something, but I think maybe it’s too soon and I shouldn’t tell you. But I kind of want to tell you anyway.”  
  
Sharon rolls onto her side so she’s facing him. She can’t remember ever feeling this happy before. “It’s not too soon,” she assures him. “You can tell me if you want.”

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you back,” she says.

He pulls her over on top of him and kisses her, deep and slow.

“Don’t tell Thor,” she says, “but you’ve always been my favorite Avenger.”

They go back to his apartment and make love. Then they order food. And then they make love again, for the last time before she leaves. Sharon turns her face into the pillow so Steve won’t see her tears, but he guesses anyway and pulls her into the circle of his arms.

“Nine days,” he says, stroking her hair and pressing kisses into the top of her head. “That’s all we have to wait before I come down to D.C.”

She squeezes her eyes shut and nods.

“We’ve already waited two years to get here,” he says. “Nine days is nothing.”

At 5:30 he makes her get up because he wants her on the road by six o’clock. When she drags her feet he starts packing her bag for her.

She glares at him from the bed. “Slow your roll, Captain Dreamboat. Why are you so eager to get rid of me?”

“I’m not eager to get rid of you, I just don’t want you on the road too late.” He kisses her forehead in passing as he scoops her shoes off the floor. “You’re precious cargo, we can’t have you falling asleep behind the wheel.”

He is headstrong and perverse, and despite her best efforts to the contrary he manages to herd her down to the garage with her packed bag at exactly 6:00. “Be safe,” he tells her. “Be careful.”

“You too,” she says. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He wraps his arms around her and hugs her tight; he smells like Indian food and sex and perfect happiness. “I’ll come see you in nine days,” he promises, letting go.

Her hands curl into the front of his shirt to tug him in for a kiss. She’s prepared to keep kissing him forever so she never has to leave, but he pulls away and opens the car door and the next thing Sharon knows she’s sitting in the car and Steve’s backing toward the elevator and waving.

She watches him in the rearview mirror as she drives away, blinking back tears.

* * *

Natasha calls as Sharon’s driving through Delaware. “When are you kids sending out your Save the Date cards?” she quips when Sharon answers.

“Very funny.”

“I thought so,” Natasha agrees. “Seriously, though, how was your sexcation?”

“Ew.”

Natasha laughs. “You’ve been giving me shit about Clint for years, Carter, if you think I’m not going to savor this you clearly don’t know me at all.”

“I’m hanging up on you,” Sharon says.

“Tell me one thing first.”

“What?”

“The Penis of Truth, Justice, and the American Way—”

“Stop—”

“Is it faster than a speeding bullet—”

“Oh my god!”

“—more powerful than a locomotive—”

“Ugh.”

“—able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?”

“You know,” Sharon says, laughing despite herself, “I have never once asked you about Barton’s penis.”

“You want to know about Barton’s penis? Because I will tell you _all about_ Barton’s penis.”

“Please don’t! I’m begging you.”

“So I’ve got a bet going with Hill,” Natasha says, “about whether or not the star-spangled love dolphin got super-sized along with the rest of Rogers. Spill, Carter, I’ve got money riding on this.”

Sharon doesn’t ask which side of the bet Natasha took, because she does not want to know. “I hate you,” she says fondly.

“Shut up. You love me.”

“I kind of do,” Sharon says. Because she does.

“Ugh,” Natasha says. “Feelings.”

 


	16. Epilogue

Sharon grabs her hazelnut latte off the counter and fumbles her ringing phone out of her purse as she pushes her way out of the coffee shop. It’s Monday morning and she’s running late for work, but there’s no way she’s passing up her morning caffeine hit because she has priorities.

The number on the incoming call screen is unfamiliar and she frowns at it before answering. “Hello?”

“Sharon, it’s Maria Hill.”

Sharon comes to a dead stop in the middle of the sidewalk. “Hey,” she says, ignoring the dirty looks of the other pedestrians streaming past her.

“I’m going to be in town tonight and I’d like to meet if you’re available.”

“All right,” Sharon says, feeling simultaneously wary and hopeful. “When and where?”

“The Fairfax Hotel at Embassy Row. Eight o’clock. I’ll text you the room number.”

“Sounds good.”

“Oh, and Sharon? It’s need-to-know only, so don’t mention anything to Rogers if you happen to talk to him.”

* * *

“You’re going to want to sit down,” Maria says as she ushers Sharon into the hotel room. It’s a large suite, with a sofa and two chairs in addition to the king-size bed.

Sharon crosses her arms. “I’d prefer to stand, if you don’t mind.”

Maria shrugs. “Suit yourself.” She walks over and knocks on the door to the adjoining room.

The door opens and Phil Coulson steps out. He nods an expressionless greeting. “Agent 13.”

Sharon stares at him—at his impeccable suit and his perfect fucking poker face. Just standing there, alive, right in front of her, like it hasn’t been over two years since they put him in the ground.

“Shit,” she says, and sits down.

“It’s easier if you’re sitting,” Coulson says. He at least he has the decency to sound apologetic.

“Somehow I doubt that,” Sharon says. She probably shouldn’t be surprised, but she is. She was at his funeral. Barton _cried,_ for fuck’s sake. She wonders if he knows. If Natasha knows.

Coulson smiles thinly. “Maybe not.” He sits down across from her. Hill remains standing, and doesn’t say anything. “I’m here to make you a job offer, Agent Carter.”

“I’m listening,” Sharon says.

“How would you like to come back to work for SHIELD?”

**~ The End ~**


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